PDFs & annotations

[enricocerica]

Hi,

We have indexed PDFs documents modified with the Adobe professional to allow users with acrobat reader to annotate them. The annotation works fine outside Alfresco and it works fine too when documents are opened via the CIFS, so the annotation process is just working fine.

The problem occures when the PDF documents are annotated via the WEB Client. Indeed, the document opened in the acrobat reader is a temporary copy, we can annotate it, we can save it, but the original document on the server is not changed and I can imagine that there should be a specific process to upload it once it is saved locally. We tried using the browser acrobat reader plugin (I mean PDF document opened in the browser), we tried using acrobat reader application (We changed the browser definition to open the application outside the browser instead of the plugin), we tried with check out and check in process in Alfresco, but without success.

So my question is :

Is there something special to do to be able to annotate a PDF document via the WEB Client (not CIFS) and to apply the modifications on the original document stored on the server, just like it works for text documents that you may edit directely in the browser ?

Thanks

[jpfi]

Hi,
by saying open per web client you are actually downloading the pdf via http.
You've to ensure that you are using WebDAV or CIFS for that purpose.

Cheers,
Jan

[enricocerica]

Thanks jpfi,

Is there a way to avoid the usage of CIFS or WebDAV to change a document, a plugin or some Ajax code which provides remote update functionnalities ? How does it work for text documents ?

Enrico

[tommorris]

Instead of using the default hyperlink on the alfresco web-client to open the PDF (which uses HTTP to download a copy) there is another hyperlink (in the details page, I think) that uses the browser to access the document using a CIFS path (works in IE fine and also Firefox with additional client download).

That way, your annotation and subsequent save, will update the repository. (I'd switch on auto-versioning before-hand, though).

I understand that you can customise the web-client to adopt this download option as standard, although this is only useful for users on the WAN/LAN.


I like your your idea of using a plug-in (probably a Java applet). This would need to store the client host and path information as meta-data on the object, and have permission to access files on the local machine. Anyone already written this?

Tom

[christopheradam]

When we are using Adobe reader to read and view pdf document, we can use its annnotation plugin to add and draw annotation object on pdf page. It is the same with a certain pdf document viewer which offers the options to create and customize <a href="http://www.rasteredge.com/how-to/vb-net-imaging/pdf-annotating/">pdf annotations</a>. Also, the annnotation add-on can be imtegrated within both windows pdf reader and online pdf viewer.