Java: Remove Annotations from PDF Documents

PDF annotations are notes or markers added to documents, which are great for making comments, giving explanations, giving feedback, etc. Co-creators of documents often communicate with annotations. However, when the issues associated with the annotations have been dealt with or the document has been finalized, it is necessary to remove the annotations to make the document more concise and professional. This article shows how to delete PDF annotations programmatically using Spire.PDF for Java.

• Remove the Specified Annotation
• Remove All Annotations from a Page
• Remove All Annotations from a PDF Document

Install Spire.PDF for Java

First of all, you're required to add the Spire.Pdf.jar file as a dependency in your Java program. The JAR file can be downloaded from this link. If you use Maven, you can easily import the JAR file in your application by adding the following code to your project's pom.xml file.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
        <name>e-iceblue</name>
        <url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
        <artifactId>spire.pdf</artifactId>
        <version>10.4.4</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
    

Remove the Specified Annotation

Annotations are page-level document elements. Therefore, deleting an annotation requires getting the page where the annotation is located first, and then you can use the PdfPageBase.getAnnotationsWidget().removeAt() method to delete the annotation. The detailed steps are as follows.

• Create a PdfDocument instance.
• Load a PDF document using PdfDocument.loadFromFile() method.
• Get the first page using PdfDocument.getPages().get() method.
• Remove the first annotation from this page using PdfPageBase.getAnnotationsWidget().removeAt() method.
• Save the document using PdfDocument.saveToFile() method.

import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfPageBase;

public class RemoveAnnotation {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Create an object of PdfDocument
        PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();

        //Load a PDF document
        pdf.loadFromFile("C:/Annotations.pdf");

        //Get the first page
        PdfPageBase page = pdf.getPages().get(0);

        //Remove the first annotation
        page.getAnnotationsWidget().removeAt(0);

        //Save the document
        pdf.saveToFile("RemoveOneAnnotation.pdf");
    }
}

Remove All Annotations from a Page

Spire.PDF for Java also provides PdfPageBase.getAnnotationsWidget().clear() method to remove all annotations in the specified page. The detailed steps are as follows.

• Create a PdfDocument instance.
• Load a PDF document using PdfDocument.loadFromFile() method.
• Get the first page using PdfDocument.getPages().get() method.
• Remove all annotations from the page using PdfPageBase.getAnnotationsWidget().clear() method.
• Save the document using PdfDocument.saveToFile() method.

import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfPageBase;

public class RemoveAllAnnotationPage {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Create an object of PdfDocument
        PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();

        //Load a PDF document
        pdf.loadFromFile("C:/Annotations.pdf");

        //Get the first page
        PdfPageBase page = pdf.getPages().get(0);

        //Remove all annotations in the page
        page.getAnnotationsWidget().clear();

        //Save the document
        pdf.saveToFile("RemoveAnnotationsPage.pdf");
    }
}

Remove All Annotations from a PDF Document

To remove all annotations from a PDF document, we need to loop through all pages in the document and delete all annotations from each page. The detailed steps are as follows.

• Create a PdfDocument instance.
• Load a PDF document using PdfDocument.loadFromFile() method.
• Loop through all pages to delete annotations.
• Delete annotations in each page using PdfPageBase.getAnnotationsWidget().clear() method.
• Save the document using PdfDocument.saveToFile() method.

import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfPageBase;

public class RemoveAllAnnotations {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Create an object of PdfDocument
        PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();

        //Load a PDF document
        pdf.loadFromFile("C:/Users/Sirion/Desktop/Annotations.pdf");

        //Loop through the pages in the document
        for (PdfPageBase page : (Iterable) pdf.getPages()) {
            //Remove annotations in each page
            page.getAnnotationsWidget().clear();
        }

        //Save the document
        pdf.saveToFile("RemoveAllAnnotations.pdf");
    }
}

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