https://github.com/apebl/pdftowrite
Annotate PDFs with Stylus Labs Write
https://github.com/apebl/pdftowrite
converter pdf stylus-labs-write svg
Last synced: 11 months ago
JSON representation
Annotate PDFs with Stylus Labs Write
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/apebl/pdftowrite
- Owner: apebl
- License: mit
- Created: 2021-03-17T12:39:32.000Z (over 5 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2024-03-21T04:58:43.000Z (over 2 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-08-16T14:59:42.318Z (11 months ago)
- Topics: converter, pdf, stylus-labs-write, svg
- Language: Python
- Homepage:
- Size: 894 KB
- Stars: 14
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 2
- Open Issues: 6
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: COPYING
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# pdftowrite: Annotate PDFs with Stylus Labs Write
A utility that converts PDF to [Stylus Labs Write](http://www.styluslabs.com/)
document, and vice versa.
## Annotate PDFs
There are two ways to annotate PDFs.
### A. Convert PDF -> SVG -> PDF (literally)
1. `pdftowrite example.pdf`: Convert *.pdf to *.svgz
2. (Open `example.svgz` with Stylus Labs Write and write your notes)
3. `writetopdf example.svgz -o example-annot.pdf`: Convert *.svgz to *.pdf
`pdftowrite` converts PDF pages to SVG paths with invisible but selectable text
layers, so you can preserve text as selectable characters.
You should use `writetopdf` instead of Write's PDF exporter which does not
support some features (e.g. Unicode text, multi-coords tspans, etc.).
The result PDF (excluding annotations) is, however, not 100% the same as the
original PDF. This is because:
- PDF and SVG are not 100% compatible
- Write does not support entire SVG spec, so some modifications are required for compatibility with Write
- Original text elements are deleted. Instead, a text layer is added to the page as mentioned earlier
### B. Annotation mode
1. `pdftowrite example.pdf`: Convert *.pdf to *.svgz
2. (Open `example.svgz` with Stylus Labs Write and write your notes)
3. `writetopdf --annot example.svgz -o example-annot.pdf`: New PDF = Original PDF + Annotations
You can see that `--annot` option is added in *3*. If the option is added,
`writetopdf` creates a new PDF by overlaying annotations on top of the original
PDF pages. This is similar to Xournal's method.
You can annotate different PDF file with `--pdf-file FILE` option. e.g.:
```
writetopdf --annot --pdf-file example2.pdf example.svgz -o example2-annot.pdf
```
## Install
```
pip install --user pdftowrite
```
### Requirements
`pdftowrite`:
* Poppler (`pdfinfo`)
* Inkscape (either native or flatpak)
* ImageMagick (`convert`)
* gzip
* lxml (libxml2, libxslt)
`writetopdf`:
* wkhtmltopdf
* PDFtk(pdftk-java)
* librsvg (`rsvg-convert`)
* gzip
You need to manually install the packages. e.g.:
- Debian/Ubuntu: `sudo apt install poppler-utils inkscape imagemagick gzip libxml2-dev libxslt-dev wkhtmltopdf pdftk librsvg2-bin`
- Fedora: `sudo dnf install poppler inkscape ImageMagick gzip libxml2-devel libxslt-devel wkhtmltopdf pdftk librsvg2-tools`
- Arch: `sudo pacman -S poppler inkscape imagemagick gzip libxslt wkhtmltopdf pdftk librsvg`
## Usage
### pdftowrite
```
usage: pdftowrite [-h] [-v] [-o OUTPUT] [-f] [-m {mixed,poppler,inkscape}]
[-C] [-d DPI] [-g PAGES] [-u NODUP_PAGES] [-Z] [-s SCALE]
[-x X] [-y Y] [-X XRULING] [-Y YRULING] [-l MARGIN_LEFT]
[-p PAPERCOLOR] [-r RULECOLOR]
FILE
Convert PDF to Stylus Labs Write document
positional arguments:
FILE A pdf file
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --version show program's version number and exit
-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
Specify output filename
-f, --force Overwrite existing files without asking
-m {mixed,poppler,inkscape}, --mode {mixed,poppler,inkscape}
Specify render mode (default: mixed)
-C, --no-compat-mode Turn off Write compatibility mode
-d DPI, --dpi DPI Specify resolution for bitmaps and rasterized filters
(default: 96)
-g PAGES, --pages PAGES
Specify pages to convert (e.g. "1 2 3", "1-3")
(default: all)
-u NODUP_PAGES, --nodup-pages NODUP_PAGES
Specify no-dup pages (e.g. "1 2 3", "1-3") (default:
all)
-Z, --nozip Do not compress output
-s SCALE, --scale SCALE
Scale page size (default: 1.0)
-x X Specify the x coordinate of the viewport of
(default: 10.0)
-y Y Specify the y coordinate of the viewport of
(default: 10.0)
-X XRULING, --xruling XRULING
Specify x rulling (default: 0.0)
-Y YRULING, --yruling YRULING
Specify y rulling (default: 40.0)
-l MARGIN_LEFT, --margin-left MARGIN_LEFT
Specify margin left (default: 100.0)
-p PAPERCOLOR, --papercolor PAPERCOLOR
Specify paper color (default: #FFFFFF)
-r RULECOLOR, --rulecolor RULECOLOR
Specify rule color (default: #9F0000FF)
```
### writetopdf
```
usage: writetopdf [-h] [-v] [--annot] [--pdf-file PDF_FILE] [-o OUTPUT] [-f]
[-g PAGES] [-s SCALE]
FILE
Convert Stylus Labs Write document to PDF
positional arguments:
FILE A Write document
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --version show program's version number and exit
--annot Use annotation mode
--pdf-file PDF_FILE Specify the PDF file to be annotated
-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
Specify output filename
-f, --force Overwrite existing files without asking
-g PAGES, --pages PAGES
Specify pages to convert (e.g. "1 2 3", "1-3")
(default: all)
-s SCALE, --scale SCALE
Scale page size (default: 1.0)
```