How to: Add a Text Markup Annotation to a PDF Document

• Mar 20, 2020
• 2 minutes to read

Important

You need a license for the DevExpress Office File API Subscription or DevExpress Universal Subscription to use these examples in production code.

This example shows how to create a text markup annotation that highlights a text in a PDF document and specify the annotation properties.

To add a text markup annotation to a page, call one of PdfDocumentProcessor.AddTextMarkupAnnotation overload methods, where specify the page number and a page area corresponding to a text that should be annotated on this page. Note that if a specified page area does not correspond to a text on the page, the annotation is not created and PdfDocumentProcessor.AddTextMarkupAnnotation overload methods return null.

View Example

Program.vb

Imports System
Imports DevExpress.Pdf

Namespace CreateMarkupAnnotation
    Friend Class Program
        Shared Sub Main(ByVal args() As String)

            ' Create a PDF Document Processor.
            Using processor As New PdfDocumentProcessor()

                ' Load a document.
                processor.LoadDocument("..\..\Document.pdf")

                ' Add a text markup annotation to the first page for a text corresponding to the specified page area.
                Dim annot As PdfTextMarkupAnnotationData = processor.AddTextMarkupAnnotation(1, New PdfRectangle(90, 100, 240, 230), PdfTextMarkupAnnotationType.Highlight)
                If annot IsNot Nothing Then

                    ' Specify the annotation properties.                    
                    annot.Author = "Bill Smith"
                    annot.Contents = "Note"
                    annot.Color = New PdfRGBColor(0.8, 0.2, 0.1)

                    ' Save the result document.
                    processor.SaveDocument("..\..\Result.pdf")
                Else
                    Console.WriteLine("The annotation cannot be added to a page. Make sure, a specified page area corresponds to a text on the page.")
                End If
            End Using
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

Program.cs

using System;
using DevExpress.Pdf;

namespace CreateMarkupAnnotation {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {

            // Create a PDF Document Processor.
            using (PdfDocumentProcessor processor = new PdfDocumentProcessor()) {

                // Load a document.
                processor.LoadDocument("..\\..\\Document.pdf");

                // Add a text markup annotation to the first page for a text corresponding to the specified page area.
                PdfTextMarkupAnnotationData annot = processor.AddTextMarkupAnnotation(1, new PdfRectangle(90, 100, 240, 230),
                                            PdfTextMarkupAnnotationType.Highlight);
                if (annot != null) {

                    // Specify the annotation properties.                    
                    annot.Author = "Bill Smith";
                    annot.Contents = "Note";
                    annot.Color = new PdfRGBColor(0.8, 0.2, 0.1);

                    // Save the result document.
                    processor.SaveDocument("..\\..\\Result.pdf");
                }
                else
                    Console.WriteLine("The annotation cannot be added to a page. Make sure, a specified page area corresponds to a text on the page.");
            }
        }
    }
}