How can we add comment in the PDF?

Question

I need to add a comment in the PDF and I am using the xymacro <:pdfs;NOTE;This technical note appears in red;/Color [1 0 0]><:pdfe;NOTE> as mentioned in the xypdf manual but unable to generate the comment in the PDF. Can anybody assist me to generate a comment in the PDF. I am using XPP 9.4.1.0.

Bart Terryn · Accepted Answer

Shahnawaz, I did some testing and It looks like the Direct PDF does not support the <:pdfs;NOTE...> syntax. My test file came out without notes when using Direct PDF with the pdfmark option set, but came out with notes when going through the 'PS to PDF file using distiller' route. From reading the xyPDF manual it is not entirely clear to me whether this is a bug or simply not supported. The manual speaks about supporting the <:pdfs> and <:pdfe> constructs in order to build bookmark and annotations the old fashioned way. The manual is also very clear that the <:pdfs;GEN> macros are not supported. But it is not clear what happens to all the other <:pdfs> and <:pdfe> macros. (hopefully SDL engineering will tune in here with the correct answer...) But anyhow even if this is a bug, you will have to open a support ticket and wait for the fix to come. And of course you do not have the time to wait as you want a solution now The easy solution is to not use the Direct PDF option but go through the PS to PDF file route. But there is also an alternate solution. Here is what you can do. I am assuming since you are still using the <:pdfs> and <:pdfe> macros that this is a job using the classic IF/XX setup but hopefully it is an XML job. If that is the case, then the solution is to simply create an extra css file that will only contain the necessary pdfmark things but using the CSS syntax. My test division was using the style 'xybase2'. I create a CSS file called xybase2.css and in that file I just put: @import url('xpp.css'); note { -xpp-pdf-annotation: "type={note} text={text as defined in CSS}"; } and when I printed this with Direct PDF and -pdfmark all was well and wherever the element note was sitting on the page I did get a PDF note. Hope this helps...

Jonathan Dagresta · Answer

Bart, thanks for checking up on me. That's what happens when you look too quickly at the code. 
 I looked again and I think you're right that <:pdfs;NOTE;...> should be working with just the -pdfmark option included (and -pdfba or -pdfua are not needed). 
 I got confused by code right at the same location that was doing some type of begin "Annot" tagging stuff, that does apply only to PDF/UA. 
 But the code actually creating the "Text annotation" does not require -pdfua nor -pdfba. 
 Just looking at the code it looks like this should be working, but I've seen the support ticket you opened and what it describes you doing for a test case and that seems to verify (agreeing with Shahnawaz) that in fact it's not working. 
 So, opening the ticket was the right way to go. 
 Unfortunately, it means that adding the -pdfua option is not a workaround (it wasn't a good one anyway) and your workaround (to use CSS) is the only viable one.

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How can we add comment in the PDF?

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