groupdocs/annotation repository overview

⁠GroupDocs Document Annotation API

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GroupDocs.Annotation Demos are applications that demonstrate powerful features of GroupDocs.Annotation for Java⁠ distributed as Docker images. Annotate PDF, DOCX, PPT, XLS, and over 90 document formats without external dependencies or additional conversions (such as DOCX to PDF or PPT to PDF). Write on documents using arrow, text, freehand drawing, and other annotation tools. Use these images as-is or customize and integrate them into your own project.

Note: without a license the application runs in trial mode. Purchase a license⁠ or request a temporary license⁠.

⁠Demo Video

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⁠Security Notice

These Docker images ship sample/demo applications — not production-ready services.

• Intended for local development and evaluation only
• Demo defaults enable upload, browse, and download; no authentication is included
• Do not expose port 8080 to untrusted networks without authentication, a reverse proxy, path validation, and other controls required by your organization
• For production, use the GroupDocs.Annotation library⁠ and implement your own secure document storage and API layer

Source code: GroupDocs.Annotation-for-Java⁠

⁠Supported Document Formats

GroupDocs.Annotation for Java supports over 50 document and image formats⁠ including Microsoft Office, PDF, images, CAD, and more.

⁠Document Annotation Demo Features

Text annotation

Freehand Drawing

Blackout & Redaction

Comments

⁠More features

• Clean, modern and intuitive design with easily switchable colour theme
• Responsive design and mobile support
• Image mode and fully customizable navigation panel
• Annotate password-protected documents
• Add, edit, and remove annotations with comments and replies
• Download original and annotated documents; upload and print documents
• Draw annotations over the document page
• Zoom, fit width, thumbnails, smooth page navigation and scrolling
• Preload pages for faster document rendering
• Multi-language support for displaying errors
• Cross-browser support (Safari, Chrome, Opera, Firefox)
• Cross-platform support (Windows, Linux, macOS)

⁠Annotation types

• Text – highlights and comments selected text
• Area – marks an area with a rectangle and adds notes to it
• Point – sticks comments to any point in a document
• TextStrikeout – marks text with strikethrough styling
• Polyline – draws shapes and freehand lines
• TextField – adds a rectangle with text inside
• Watermark – horizontal textual watermark
• TextReplacement – replaces original text with user text
• Arrow – draws an arrow on a document
• TextRedaction – fills a black rectangle to hide text
• ResourcesRedaction – fills a black rectangle with fixed position
• TextUnderline – marks text with underline styling
• Distance – measures distance between objects in a document

⁠Available Docker Images

Six images are published for each GroupDocs.Annotation for Java release: three Spring and three Dropwizard variants.

Tag format: {version}-java-{jdk}-bullseye-{framework}

Example: 25.6-java-openjdk8-bullseye-dropwizard — GroupDocs.Annotation for Java 25.6, Eclipse Temurin 8, Debian Bullseye, Dropwizard.

The latest tag points to the 25.6-java-openjdk18-bullseye-spring variant when published with the latest workflow option.

Applications are compiled for Java 8 and run on the JDK version shown in the image tag.

⁠How to Run

Pull and run a Spring image (recommended):

docker run -p 8080:8080 --name annotation --rm \
  --env HOST_ADDRESS=localhost \
  groupdocs/annotation:25.6-java-openjdk18-bullseye-spring
# Open http://localhost:8080/annotation/ in your browser.

Pull and run a Dropwizard image:

docker run -p 8080:8080 --name annotation --rm \
  --env HOST_ADDRESS=localhost \
  groupdocs/annotation:25.6-java-openjdk8-bullseye-dropwizard
# Open http://localhost:8080/annotation/ in your browser.

Bind volumes for sample files and license:

mkdir DocumentSamples Licenses
docker run -p 8080:8080 --name annotation --rm \
  --env HOST_ADDRESS=localhost \
  -v "$(pwd)/DocumentSamples:/home/groupdocs/app/DocumentSamples" \
  -v "$(pwd)/Licenses:/home/groupdocs/app/Licenses" \
  groupdocs/annotation:25.6-java-openjdk18-bullseye-spring

The sample reads license files from the mounted Licenses directory and lists documents from DocumentSamples. Put your GroupDocs license file into the Licenses folder or set LIC_PATH to another directory inside the container.

To change annotation types, preload, fonts, and other advanced settings, mount a custom configuration.yml to /home/groupdocs/app/configuration.yml.

⁠Annotation Configuration Options

⁠Environment variables

⁠configuration.yml options

⁠GroupDocs Annotation on Other Platforms

• Java Spring Document & PDF annotator⁠
• Java Dropwizard Document & PDF annotator⁠
• .NET MVC Document & PDF annotator⁠
• .NET WebForms Document & PDF annotator⁠

⁠See Also

• View documents⁠ with GroupDocs.Viewer
• Compare documents⁠ with GroupDocs.Comparison
• Sign documents⁠ with GroupDocs.Signature

Product Page⁠ | Docs⁠ | Demos⁠ | API Reference⁠ | Examples⁠ | Blog⁠ | Free Support⁠ | Temporary License⁠