GroupDocs.Annotation for Python via .NET Overview Leave feedback
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GroupDocs.Annotation for Python via .NET is a native Python library that adds, edits, and removes annotations and markup on documents — across PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, CAD, Visio, and email formats — through a single, format-independent API. It runs entirely on-premise, requires no Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat installation, and ships as a pre-built wheel on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Typical uses include:
- Document review & collaboration — add area, shape, and text-markup annotations and attach threaded reviewer comments so teams can discuss a document in place.
- Legal & contract markup — highlight clauses, strike out obsolete text, and flag regions that need attention before a document is signed or shared.
- Engineering & design review — annotate CAD drawings and Visio diagrams with area, arrow, and distance markups.
- Content & e-learning feedback — mark up images and scanned pages with points, watermarks, and image stamps.
- Automated annotation pipelines — stamp watermarks, links, and notes across many documents and save only the annotation types or page ranges you need.
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Shape Annotations | Draw area, ellipse, arrow, point, distance, and polyline annotations with configurable color and opacity. |
| Text Markup | Highlight, underline, strikeout, and squiggly-mark text, plus replacement, text-redaction, and resources-redaction annotations. |
| Content Annotations | Stamp watermarks, image annotations, hyperlinks, and editable text fields onto a document. |
| Comments & Replies | Attach threaded review comments — with user and timestamp — to any annotation. |
| Manage Annotations | List, update, and remove annotations, all of them or filtered by annotation type. |
| Save Filters | Render only selected annotation types, or a specific page range, when saving the result. |
| Document Inspection | Read file type, page count, and size without modifying the document. |
Every capability is covered with runnable, copy-paste examples in the Developer Guide.
Add an annotation and save the result with just a few lines of code. The example draws a yellow area annotation on the first page of sample.pdf and writes the result to annotated.pdf:
from groupdocs.annotation import Annotator
from groupdocs.annotation.models import Rectangle
from groupdocs.annotation.models.annotation_models import AreaAnnotation
from groupdocs.pydrawing import Color
def annotate_area():
# Open the document
with Annotator("./sample.pdf") as annotator:
# Build an area annotation on the first page
area = AreaAnnotation()
area.box = Rectangle(100, 100, 200, 80) # x, y, width, height
area.page_number = 0 # 0-based page index
area.background_color = Color.yellow.to_argb() # ARGB int, not a Color object
area.message = "Review this section"
annotator.add(area)
# Save the annotated document
annotator.save("./annotated.pdf")
if __name__ == "__main__":
annotate_area()
sample.pdf is the sample file used in this example. Click here to download it.
Binary file (PDF, 1.0 MB)
For richer review workflows, add several annotations, attach a comment thread, and save only the area annotations with a page-range filter using SaveOptions:
from groupdocs.annotation import Annotator
from groupdocs.annotation.models import Rectangle, Point, Reply
from groupdocs.annotation.models.annotation_models import AreaAnnotation, HighlightAnnotation
from groupdocs.annotation.options import SaveOptions, AnnotationType
from groupdocs.pydrawing import Color
def annotate_with_options():
with Annotator("./sample.pdf") as annotator:
# An area annotation carrying a threaded review comment
area = AreaAnnotation()
area.box = Rectangle(100, 100, 200, 80)
area.page_number = 0
area.background_color = Color.yellow.to_argb()
area.message = "Please review"
reply = Reply()
reply.comment = "Confirmed, looks good"
area.replies = [reply]
# A text highlight described by a quad of points
highlight = HighlightAnnotation()
highlight.page_number = 0
highlight.font_color = Color.lime.to_argb()
highlight.points = [Point(80, 730), Point(240, 730), Point(240, 750), Point(80, 750)]
annotator.add([area, highlight])
# Render only area annotations, and only the first page
options = SaveOptions()
options.annotation_types = AnnotationType.AREA
options.first_page = 1 # SaveOptions pages are 1-based
options.last_page = 1
annotator.save("./annotated.pdf", save_options=options)
if __name__ == "__main__":
annotate_with_options()
sample.pdf is the sample file used in this example. Click here to download it.
Binary file (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Install the package — Installation walks through PyPI and offline wheel installation for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
- Run your first annotation — Hello, World! annotates a document in under five minutes.
- Explore runnable examples — How to Run Examples clones the GitHub repository and runs every documented scenario locally or in Docker.
- Use it in depth — the Developer Guide covers every API surface with runnable, copy-paste code examples.
- Plug it into AI pipelines — AI Agents & LLM Integration explains the bundled
AGENTS.md, the MCP server, and machine-readable docs.
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