How can I present PDFs annotated via popups in a browser window?

March 12, 2013 1:27 PM

Hi all! I am looking for something that I think should exist but I can't seem to be able to find it. I am looking for a way to put a PDF on a webpage with annotation markers, so that when a user clicks on the annotation marker, a pop up box opens up with the annotation comment. For example, imagine a PDF of a first edition of "Alice in Wonderland" or the Bible that you could click on and notes about the phrase you clicked on would appear in a pop up window. The seems a useful bit of technology but I've looked around the web and I've been unable to find any pages like this. I am looking for two things: (1) Examples of such pages currently online; and (2) A software program that would create such pages. Thanks in advance!
posted by laswingkid to computers & internet (2 answers total)

Adobe Acrobat can run JavaScript and there are extensions that add popups to PDFs. These can probably only be viewed in Acrobat Reader though.

Or there's FoxIt reader which has the Note Tool. Again, your users will need FoxIt.

An entirely different approach would be modify PDF.JS to display annotations in a popup. You'll need to know JavaScript but it'd work well in modern browsers.
posted by holloway at 2:17 PM on March 12

By the way, here is an example of the effect I'm looking for. (Mouse over the photo to see the pop ups.)
posted by laswingkid at 2:19 PM on March 12