Which Python Library For Pdf Adds Annotations And Comments?

2025-09-03 02:07:05 108

4 Answers

Maxwell
Maxwell
2025-09-04 18:15:47
Quick tip I often tell friends: try PyMuPDF first. It’s simple to install (pip install PyMuPDF), and adding a quick text note or highlight is straightforward with page.addTextAnnot or page.addHighlightAnnot. For heavier document creation where I want a predictable output format with annotations baked in, I’ll use borb. If a PDF is acting weird or annotations vanish when re-opening in Adobe Reader, pikepdf helps me dig into the object structure and fix references. Honestly, for most day-to-day tasks PyMuPDF covers everything I need, but it’s nice to know borb and pikepdf are in the back pocket when things get finicky.
Reese
Reese
2025-09-05 02:03:23
Okay, if you want the short practical scoop from me: PyMuPDF (imported as fitz) is the library I reach for when I need to add or edit annotations and comments in PDFs. It feels fast, the API is intuitive, and it supports highlights, text annotations, pop-up notes, ink, and more. For example I’ll open a file with fitz.open('file.pdf'), grab page = doc[0], and then do page.addHighlightAnnot(rect) or page.addTextAnnot(point, 'My comment'), tweak the info, and save. It handles both reading existing annotations and creating new ones, which is huge when you’re cleaning up reviewer notes or building a light annotation tool.

I also keep borb in my toolkit—it's excellent when I want a higher-level, Pythonic way to generate PDFs with annotations from scratch, plus it has good support for interactive annotations. For lower-level manipulation, pikepdf (a wrapper around qpdf) is great for repairing PDFs and editing object streams but is a bit more plumbing-heavy for annotations. There’s also a small project called pdf-annotate that focuses on adding annotations, and pdfannots for extracting notes. If you want a single recommendation to try first, install PyMuPDF with pip install PyMuPDF and play with page.addTextAnnot and page.addHighlightAnnot; you’ll probably be smiling before long.
Quincy
Quincy
2025-09-07 16:43:11
I tend to approach library choice like picking a tool from a well-worn toolbox: PyMuPDF wins most days for annotations because it reads, edits, and writes them cleanly. I’ve used it to extract reviewer comments, convert sticky-note annotations into inline comments, and programmatically add highlights across hundreds of pages without losing metadata.

If you want alternatives, borb is pleasant for programmatic creation and supports annotation objects; pikepdf is my low-level fallback when PDFs are malformed or I need to edit raw objects and references. For simple web workflows, I’ve toyed with pdf-annotate to generate annotation overlays. One note of caution: older forks like PyPDF2 historically struggled with annotation support—depending on the PDF's producer you may need to try multiple libraries to preserve appearance and metadata. Usually I begin with PyMuPDF and switch to pikepdf only if I need deeper fixes or borb for structured generation.
Quincy
Quincy
2025-09-09 18:10:18
Curious about extracting comments from reviewed PDFs? I found PyMuPDF indispensable for that task. When a professor sends me a thesis with sticky notes, I open the file with fitz, iterate page.annots() and pull annot.info or annot.getContents() to harvest the comment text. The flow for reading annotations is different from creating them, which is why I love libraries that do both without fighting the PDF spec.

A few practical distinctions I’ve learned the hard way: pikepdf is fantastic when the PDF is corrupted or produced by odd toolchains, because it exposes objects; borb shines when you want to embed structured interactive annotations during generation; and pdf-annotate is a niche but handy choice if you’re stitching annotations into a web rendering pipeline. If you’re concerned about cross-compatibility with Adobe Reader or Acrobat comments, test with real-world samples—some annotation types (like custom appearance streams) can be tricky to preserve across libraries.
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