About GroupDocs.Annotation for Java API

GroupDocs.Annotation for Java API is a library that allows you to add annotations to PDF, Word and other documents on Mac, Windows or Ubuntu. GroupDocs.Annotation for Java is a native Java API for managing annotations with comprehensive support for creating, adding, editing, deleting, extracting and exporting annotations from images and various other documents. The full list of supported document formats you could see on this page. This library allows you to work not only with DOTX document but also with many other types documents such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook emails, Visio, Adobe, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Photoshop, AutoCad and many others. The GroupDocs.Annotation for Java API allows you to create and add new notes, edit annotations, extract comments, annotations, and remove them from documents. The library supports 13 different annotation types, including Text, Polyline, Area, Underline, Point, Watermark, Arrow, Ellipse, Text Replacement, Distance, Text Field, Resource Redaction in PDF, HTML, Microsoft Word documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, presentations, drawings, images and many other file formats. The example (please see below) demonstrates working with DOTX document, in this example you could see the main steps of how to work with GroupDocs.Annotation: Setup a license, open a document you want to work with, creating an annotation, adding data objects to set annotation properties according to your requirements and saving the result to the needed place. Also you could have a look more detailed on the supported features on our github page, or in our product documentation.

Steps to Add Annotations to DOTX in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easy for Java developers to add various annotation types to DOTX files within any Java-based application by implementing a few easy steps.

Create Reply objects with comment and date.
Create AreaAnnotation object, set area options and add replies.
Create Annotator object and add area annotation.
Save output file.

System Requirements

GroupDocs.Annotation for Java APIs are supported on all major platforms and operating systems. Before executing the code below, please make sure that you have the following prerequisites installed on your system.

Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS
Development Environment: NetBeans, Intellij IDEA, Eclipse etc
Java Runtime Environment: Java 7 (1.7) and above
Get the latest version of GroupDocs.Annotation for Java from GroupDocs Artifact Repository

Annotation preview and code sample

// Create an instance of Reply class and add comments
Reply firstReply = new Reply();
firstReply.setComment("First comment");
firstReply.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

Reply secondReply = new Reply();
secondReply.setComment("Second comment");
secondReply.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

List<Reply> replies = new ArrayList<Reply>();
replies.add(firstReply);
replies.add(secondReply);

// Create an instance of AreaAnnotation class and set options
AreaAnnotation area = new AreaAnnotation();
area.setBackgroundColor(65535);
area.setBox(new Rectangle(100, 100, 100, 100));
area.setCreatedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
area.setMessage("This is area annotation");
area.setOpacity(0.7);
area.setPageNumber(0);
area.setPenColor(65535);
area.setPenStyle(PenStyle.Dot);
area.setPenWidth((byte) 3);
area.setReplies(replies);

// Create an instance of Annotator class
Annotator annotator = new Annotator("input.bmp");

// Add annotation
annotator.add(area);

// Save to file
annotator.save("output.bmp");
annotator.dispose();

Annotation preview image

Steps to Edit Annotations from DOTX in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easier for Java developers to update various annotation properties from DOTX files within any Java-based application by implementing a few easy steps.

Instantiate Annotator object with input document path or stream with instantiated LoadOptions with ImportAnnotations = true.
Create some AnnotationBase implementation and set Id of existed annotation (if annotation with that Id not found, nothing will be changed) or path list of annotations (all existed annotations will be removed).
Call update method of Annotator object with passed annotations.
Call save method with resultant document path or stream and SaveOptions object.

String outputPath = "UpdateAnnotation.bmp";

// Create an instance of Annotator class
Annotator annotator = new Annotator("input.bmp");

// Create an instance of Reply class for first example and add comments
Reply reply1 = new Reply();
reply1.setComment("Original first comment");
reply1.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

Reply reply2 = new Reply();
reply2.setComment("Original second comment");
reply2.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

java.util.List replies = new ArrayList();
replies.add(reply1);
replies.add(reply2);

// Create an instance of AreaAnnotation class and set options
AreaAnnotation original = new AreaAnnotation();
original.setId(1);
original.setBackgroundColor(65535);
original.setBox(new Rectangle(100, 100, 100, 100));
original.setCreatedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
original.setMessage("This is original annotation");
original.setReplies(replies);

// Add original annotation
annotator.add(original);
annotator.save(outputPath);
annotator.dispose();

LoadOptions loadOptions = new LoadOptions();

// Open annotated document
Annotator annotator1 = new Annotator(outputPath, loadOptions);

// Create an instance of Reply class for update first example
Reply reply3 = new Reply();
reply3.setComment("Updated first comment");
reply3.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

Reply reply4 = new Reply();
reply4.setComment("Updated second comment");
reply4.setRepliedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

java.util.List replies1 = new ArrayList();
replies1.add(reply3);
replies1.add(reply4);

// Suggest we want change some properties of existed annotation
AreaAnnotation updated = new AreaAnnotation();
updated.setId(1);
updated.setBackgroundColor(255);
updated.setBox(new Rectangle(0, 0, 50, 200));
updated.setCreatedOn(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
updated.setMessage("This is updated annotation");
updated.setReplies(replies1);

// Update and save annotation
annotator1.update(updated);
annotator1.save(outputPath);
annotator1.dispose();

About DOTX File Format

Files with DOTX extension are template files created by Microsoft Word to have pre-formatted settings for generation of further DOCX files. A template file is created in order to have specific user settings that should be applied to subsequent flies created from these. These settings include page margins, borders, headers, footers, and other page settings. Such templates are used in official documents such as company letterheads and standardized forms. The DOTX file format was introduced with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 to replace the binary DOT file format, but is supported by higher versions as well. Microsoft Word by default opens every new document based on normal.dot file. If modified, all the new files created will result in same settings as from the template file. In Microsoft Word 2007, the DOT file format has been replaced with Office OpenXML based DOTX file format.

Working with Other Popular Document Formats

Update annotation properties from some of the popular file formats as stated below.

Annotate DOTX from Java