Files
pdfcraft/crates/annot
07b95409bf Comments without an appearance stream are drawn (display only, never saved) (#371)
* M5: comments without an appearance stream are drawn (display only, never saved)

#260 (page 7): a FreeText box with /DA and an orange /C background, a
Text note and an Ink stroke, all without /AP, were not drawn; Acrobat,
MuPDF, PDFium and Poppler draw them. The renderer only draws /AP (plus
the Highlight fallback of #274), and pdfcraft-annot, which already
draws all of these for PdfCraft's own comments, can't be used from the
renderer (both are L3).

pdfcraft_annot::with_missing_appearances returns a copy of the document
in which every annotation without /AP /N that appearance::build can
draw (FreeText, Ink, Text, FileAttachment, stamps, shapes, lines,
markup, …) has the appearance build draws from its dictionary; links,
form fields and pop-ups are left alone, as is anything build declines.
The engine keeps that copy, written as an in-memory incremental update,
in a new Document::display: the page view's render pool, page_render
and page images (export_source) read it. Document::bytes, what Save,
signatures and the inspector use, is unchanged. display is rebuilt
wherever the renderer was (open, refresh, scoped refresh) and is bytes
itself when nothing is missing or the document can't be edited.

Tests: annot tests::comments_without_appearances_get_one_for_display_only
(FreeText, Ink and Text get /AP /N in the copy, an existing /AP is kept,
Link, Widget and an unknown subtype aren't touched, the original is
untouched, none means no copy) and engine
tests::comments_without_appearances_are_drawn_but_not_saved (the page
view draws the FreeText background and the Ink stroke, before and after
an edit; the working bytes stay the opened file; Save writes no /AP).
On main the page view shows white where the FreeText box is. Parity:
view.render-annotation-appearances cites the test and notes what's left
(Link borders without /AP, printing).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Test the Ink stroke on its apex row: Ink is now a curve through its points (#374)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Brandon Thomas <echelon@gmail.com>
2026-10-08 19:43:58 -04:00
..

pdfcraft-annot

Comments (annotations), ISO 32000-2 §12.5. Layer L3, depends only on pdfcraft-cos.

What it does

  • Builders for the comment types Acrobat's commenting tools create: sticky note (Text + Popup), highlight, underline, strikethrough, squiggly, rectangle (Square), oval (Circle), line and arrow (Line with /LE), freehand drawing (Ink) and text box (FreeText).
  • Appearance streams (appearance::build) generated from the annotation dictionary, so new and restyled comments look the same in every viewer. Highlights multiply (/BM /Multiply). Note icons are PdfCraft's own drawings. Text boxes use standard Helvetica (WinAnsi), with line breaking by approximate Helvetica proportions (no font program is bundled).
  • Edits: reply (/IRT), set review status (a /State reply, as Acrobat's "Set status" does), change text, move, resize, restyle, delete (with pop-up and replies).

API sketch

let index = add_annotation(&mut doc, &NewAnnotation { page, shape, style, contents, author }, &meta)?;
add_reply(&mut doc, page, index, "Agreed", "Ada", &meta)?;
set_review_state(&mut doc, page, index, ReviewState::Accepted, "Ada", &meta)?;
move_annotation(&mut doc, page, index, dx, dy, &meta)?;
set_style(&mut doc, page, index, Some(rgb), Some(0.5), Some(2.0), &meta)?;
delete_annotation(&mut doc, page, index)?;
signature_image(&doc, page, index)?; // embedded image XObject of Fill & Sign signature/initials

A comment is addressed by (page, index in /Annots), the same pair pdfcraft_render::Annotation reports. Meta carries the date and the /NM id so edits stay deterministic; the engine supplies them.

Fidelity rules

  • Unknown keys are kept. Inline annotation dictionaries are promoted to indirect objects only when an edit needs a reference to them.
  • set_style refuses (and changes nothing) when it cannot redraw the comment, e.g. stamps, cloudy borders or callouts, instead of leaving a stale appearance.
  • Replies get the parent's /Rect and an empty appearance: they appear in comment lists but never paint a second icon.
  • Resizing a stamp changes its /Rect and preserves its original appearance and resources; viewers scale that appearance into the new rectangle. Locked stamps refuse the edit.

Not yet

Callouts, polygons and polylines, clouds, carets (insert/replace text), stamps, file attachments, rich text (/RC, /DS), and the shared named-appearance cache Acrobat writes.