Text Annotations — Sticky Notes

• Jul 21, 2026

Create a TextAnnotation and add it to the page.

The following code snippet creates a sticky note and adds it to the first page:

// Get the first page in the document.
Page page = pdfDocument.getPages().getFirst();

TextAnnotation annotation = new TextAnnotation(new RectangleF(50, 430, 24, 36));

annotation.setTitle("Brian Zetc");
annotation.setContent("Please review this paragraph.");
annotation.setColor(PdfColor.getLightGray());

page.getAnnotations().add(annotation);

Configure a Text Annotation

Use the following TextAnnotation methods to specify the annotation’s icon, initial state, and review status:

Property	Description
setIconName()	Specifies the icon displayed for the text annotation.
setIsOpened()	Specifies whether the annotation pop-up appears open when the document opens.
setStateModel()	Specifies the state model associated with the annotation.
setState()	Specifies the annotation state within the selected state model (for example, Accepted or Rejected).

The following code snippet creates a text annotation, displays a comment icon, and opens the annotation when the document is loaded:

TextAnnotation annotation = new TextAnnotation(new RectangleF(50, 450, 24, 36));

annotation.setTitle("Brian Zetc");
annotation.setContent("Please review this paragraph.");
annotation.setColor(PdfColor.getOrange());
annotation.setIconName(TextAnnotationIconName.COMMENT);
annotation.setIsOpened(true);

page.getAnnotations().add(annotation);

The following code snippet marks the annotation as accepted in the Review state model:

annotation.setStateModel(TextAnnotationStateModel.REVIEW);
annotation.setState(TextAnnotationState.ACCEPTED);