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Annotate VSS from Java


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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 VSS 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 VSS 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 VSS in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easy for Java developers to add various annotation types to VSS 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 Remove Annotations from VSS in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easier for Java developers to remove annotation details from VSS files within any Java-based application by implementing a few easy steps.

  • Create Reply objects with comment and date.
  • Instantiate SaveOptions object and set AnnotationTypes = AnnotationType.None.
  • Call save method with resultant document path or stream and SaveOptions object.

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

// Remove annotation by set type None 
SaveOptions saveOptions = new SaveOptions();
saveOptions.setAnnotationTypes(AnnotationType.None);

// Save annotation to output file
annotator.save("C://output.bmp", saveOptions);
annotator.dispose();

Steps to Edit Annotations from VSS in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easier for Java developers to update various annotation properties from VSS 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();

Steps to Extract Annotations from VSS in Java

GroupDocs.Annotation makes it easy for Java developers to annotate documents and extract annotation information from VSS files within any Java-based application by implementing a few easy steps.

  • Create Reply objects with comment and date.
  • Instantiate LoadOptions object and call SetImportAnnotations with true argument.
  • Define variable with type List.
  • Call get method and return result to variable above.

// For using this example input file ("annotated.bmp") must be with annotations
LoadOptions loadOptions = new LoadOptions();

// Create an instance of Annotator class and get annotations
final Annotator annotator = new Annotator("annotated.bmp", loadOptions);
List annotations = annotator.get();

Live Demos to Add, Remove, Edit, Extract Annotations to Documents and Images

Add, remove, edit and extract annotations to VSS file right now by visiting GroupDocs.Annotation Live Demos website. The live demo has the following benefits

No need to download API

No need to write any code

Just upload the source file

Get download link to save the file

About VSS File Format

VSS are stencil files created with Microsoft Visio 2007 and earlier. A relatively new file format is .VSSX that was introduced with Microsoft Visio 2013. Stencil files provide drawing objects that can be included in a .VSD Visio drawing. Microsoft Visio itself is known for creating drawing elements such as collection of shapes, connectors, flowcharts, network layout, UML diagrams, software diagrams, database models, objects mapping and other similar information. It also has rich conversion features of Visio documents to other file formats such as PNG, BMP, PDF and others. Visio is available for both Windows and Mac OS.

Read More About VSS File Format

Working with Other Popular Document Formats

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

Annotate PDF document

(Adobe Portable Document Format)

Annotate DOC document

(Microsoft Word Document)

Annotate DOCM document

(Microsoft Word Macro-Enabled Document)

Annotate DOCX document

(Microsoft Word Open XML Document)

Annotate DOT document

(Microsoft Word Document Template)

Annotate DOTX document

(Word Open XML Document Template)

Annotate RTF document

(Rich Text Document)

Annotate ODT document

(Open Document Text)

Annotate XLS document

(Microsoft Excel Binary File Format)

Annotate XLSX document

(Microsoft Excel Open XML Spreadsheet)

Annotate XLSM document

(Microsoft Excel Macro-Enabled Spreadsheet)

Annotate XLSB document

(Microsoft Excel Binary Worksheet)

Annotate ODS document

(Open Document Spreadsheet)

Annotate PPT document

(PowerPoint Presentation)

Annotate PPTX document

(PowerPoint Open XML Presentation)

Annotate PPSX document

(PowerPoint Open XML Slide Show)

Annotate POTM document

(Microsoft PowerPoint Template)

Annotate PPTM document

(Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation)

Annotate PPS document

(Microsoft PowerPoint 97-2003 Slide Show)

Annotate ODP document

(OpenDocument Presentation)

Annotate HTML document

(HyperText Markup Language)

Annotate TIFF document

(Tagged Image File Format)

Annotate JPEG document

(JPEG Image)

Annotate PNG document

(Portable Network Graphic)

Annotate EML document

(E-mail Message)

Annotate MSG document

(Microsoft Outlook E-mail Message)

Annotate VSD document

(Microsoft Visio 2003-2010 Drawing)

Annotate VSDX document

(Microsoft Visio Drawing)

Annotate VSS document

(Microsoft Visio 2003-2010 Stencil)

Annotate VST document

(Microsoft Visio 2013 Stencil)

Annotate DWG document

(Autodesk Design Data Formats)

Annotate DXF document

(AutoCAD Drawing Interchange)

Annotate DCM document

(Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine)

Annotate WMF document

(Windows Metafile)

Annotate EMF document

(Enhanced Metafile Format)

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