Free Text Annotations

• Jul 21, 2026
• 2 minutes to read

A free text annotation displays text directly on a PDF page. Use free text annotations to add comments, labels, or instructions.

To create a free text annotation, do the following:

1. Create a FreeTextAnnotation object and specify annotation bounds.
2. Use the setContent(String value) method to specify the annotation text.
3. Configure the text appearance. For example, specify text justification and a default style.
4. (Optional) Configure additional properties, such as the annotation intent, border style, callout line, or markup annotation properties.
5. Add the annotation to the page’s annotation collection.

The following code snippet creates a free text annotation, specifies its author, content, and text appearance, and adds the annotation to a page:

package pdf;

import com.devexpress.docs.pdf.*;
import com.devexpress.system.drawing.*;

import java.nio.channels.*;
import java.nio.file.*;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        try (FileChannel fileChannel = FileChannel.open(Path.of("Document.pdf"));
             PdfDocument pdfDocument = new PdfDocument(fileChannel)) {

            Page page = pdfDocument.getPages().getFirst();

            createFreeTextAnnotation(page);

            // Save the document.
            try (WritableByteChannel channel =
                         FileChannel.open(Path.of("Result.pdf"),
                                 StandardOpenOption.CREATE,
                                 StandardOpenOption.WRITE,
                                 StandardOpenOption.TRUNCATE_EXISTING)) {

                pdfDocument.save(channel);
            }
        }
    }

    static void createFreeTextAnnotation(Page page) {
        FreeTextAnnotation annotation =
                new FreeTextAnnotation(
                        new RectangleF(200, 520, 260, 220));

        annotation.setTitle("John Smith");
        annotation.setSubject("Editorial Review");
        annotation.setContent("Update this section.");
        annotation.setTextJustification(TextJustification.LEFT_JUSTIFIED);
        annotation.setDefaultStyle("font: Times-Roman 12pt; color: #2B579A;");
        annotation.setOpacity(0.5);

        annotation.getPopup().setOpen(true);

        page.getAnnotations().add(annotation);
    }
}

The following screenshot illustrates the result: