Migration Notes

Why to migrate?

Here are the key reasons to use the new updated API provided by GroupDocs.Annotation for Java since version 19.8:

  • The Annotator class introduced as a single entry point to manage the document annotating process to any supported file format (instead of AnnotationImageHandler class in previous versions).
  • The overall rendering speed improved dramatically by saving rendered page as soon as it was rendered, not when all pages list were rendered.
  • Document saving options simplified so it is easy to instantiate proper options class and to control over document annotating and saving processes.

How to migrate?

Here is a brief comparison of how to annotate document and save it using old and new API.

Old coding style

List<AnnotationInfo> annotations = new List<AnnotationInfo>();
AnnotationInfo areaAnnotation = new AnnotationInfo();
areaAnnotation.setPageNumber(0);
areaAnnotation.setBox(new Rectangle(100, 100, 100, 100));
areaAnnotation.setType(Domain.AnnotationType.Area);
areaAnnotation.setText("area");

AnnotationInfo ellipseAnnotation = new AnnotationInfo();
ellipseAnnotation.setPageNumber(0);
ellipseAnnotation.setBox(new Rectangle(200, 200, 80, 80));
ellipseAnnotation.setType(Domain.AnnotationType.Ellipse);
ellipseAnnotation.setText("ellipse");           
 
// Create annotation config
AnnotationConfig config = new AnnotationConfig();

// Set storage path
config.setStoragePath("storage");

// Create annotation handler
AnnotationImageHandler annotator = new AnnotationImageHandler(config);

// Create input file
// Export annotations and save result
InputStream result = annotator.exportAnnotationsToDocument(fs, annotations);

// Save result stream to file.
OutputStream fileStream = new FileOutputStream("input.pdf");
IOUtils.copy(result, fileStream);

New coding style

// Create list of annotations
List<AnnotationBase> annotations = new List<AnnotationBase>();

AreaAnnotation areaAnnotation = new AreaAnnotation();
areaAnnotation.setPageNumber(0);
areaAnnotation.setBox(new Rectangle(100, 100, 100, 100));
areaAnnotation.setText("area");

EllipseAnnotation ellipseAnnotation = new EllipseAnnotation();
ellipseAnnotation.setPageNumber(0);
ellipseAnnotation.setBox(new Rectangle(200, 200, 80, 80));
ellipseAnnotation.setText("ellipse");
 
Annotator annotator = new Annotator("input.pdf");

// Add annotations
annotator.Add(annotations);

// Save result to "result.pdf"
annotator.Save("result.pdf", new SaveOptions());

For more code snippets and specific use cases please refer to our Developer Guide documentation or GitHub samples and showcases.