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https://github.com/0xabu/pdfannots

Extracts and formats text annotations from a PDF file
https://github.com/0xabu/pdfannots

Last synced: 3 months ago
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Extracts and formats text annotations from a PDF file

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README 

        
## pdfannots



[![Build status](https://github.com/0xabu/pdfannots/actions/workflows/python-checks.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/0xabu/pdfannots/actions/workflows/python-checks.yml)

[![PyPI version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/pdfannots)](https://pypi.org/project/pdfannots/)



This program extracts annotations (highlights, comments, etc.) from a PDF file,

and formats them as Markdown or exports them to JSON. It is primarily intended

for use in reviewing submissions to scientific conferences/journals.



![Sample/demo of pdfannots extracting Markdown from an annotated PDF](doc/demo.png)



For the default Markdown format, the output is as follows:



 * Highlights without an attached comment are output first, as

   "highlights" with just the highlighted text included. Note that

   these are not typically suitable for use in a review, since they're

   unlikely to have any meaning to the recipient; they are just meant

   to serve as a reminder to the reviewer.



 * Highlights with an attached comment, and text annotations (not

   attached to any particular text/highlight) are output next, as

   "detailed comments". Typically most comments on a reviewed paper

   are of this form.



 * Underline, strikeout, and squiggly underline annotations are output

   last, as "Nits", with or without an attached comment. The intention

   of this is to easily separate formatting or grammatical corrections

   from more substantial comments about the content of the document.



For each annotation, the page number is given, along with the associated

(highlighted/underlined) text, if any. Additionally, if the document embeds

outlines (aka bookmarks), such as those generated by the LaTeX

[hyperref](https://ctan.org/pkg/hyperref) package, they are printed to help

identify to which section in the document the annotation refers.



### Installation



To install the latest released version from PyPI, use a command such as:

```

python3 -m pip install pdfannots

```



### Usage



See `pdfannots --help` (in a source tree: `pdfannots.py --help`) for

options and invocation.



### Dependencies



 * Python >= 3.8

 * [pdfminer.six](https://github.com/pdfminer/pdfminer.six)



### Known issues and limitations



 * While it is generally reliable, pdfminer (the underlying PDF parser) is

   not infallible at extracting text from a PDF. It has been known to fail

   in several different ways:



    * Sometimes it misses or misplaces individual characters, resulting in

      annotations with some or all of the text missing (in the latter case,

      you'll see a warning).



    * Sometimes the characters are captured, but not spaces between the words.

      Tweaking the advanced layout analysis parameters (e.g., `--word-margin`)

      may help with this.



    * Sometimes it extracts all the text but renders it out of order, for

      example, reporting that text at the top of a second column comes before

      text at the end of the first column. This causes pdfannots to return the

      annotations out of order, or to report the wrong outlines (section

      headings) for annotations. You can mostly work around this issue by using

      the `--cols` parameter to force a fixed page layout for the document

      (e.g. `--cols=2` for a typical 2-column document).



 * If an annotation (such as a StrikeOut) covers solely whitespace, no text is

   extracted for the annotation, and it will be skipped (with a warning). This

   is an artifact of the way pdfminer reports whitespace with only an implicit

   position defined by surrounding characters.



 * When extracting text, we remove all hyphens that immediately precede a line

   break and join the adjacent words. This usually produces the best results

   with LaTeX multi-column documents (e.g. "soft-`\n`ware" becomes "software"),

   but sometimes the hyphen needs to stay (e.g. "memory-`\n`mapped", which will be

   extracted as "memorymapped"), and we can't tell the difference. To disable

   this behaviour, pass `--keep-hyphens`.



### FAQ



 1. I'd like to change how the output is formatted.



    Some minor tweaks (e.g.: word wrap, skipping or reordering output sections)

    can be accomplished via command-line arguments.



    All of the output comes from the relevant `Printer` subclass; more elaborate

    changes can be accomplished there. Pull requests to introduce new output

    formats or variants as printers are welcomed.



 2. I think I got a review generated by this tool...



    I hope that it was a constructive review, and that the annotations

    helped the reviewer give you more detailed feedback so you can improve

    your paper. This is, after all, just a tool, and it should not be an

    excuse for reviewer sloppiness.