Fragment selector for PDFs + PDF.js integration

[jaime-rivas]

Hi everyone,

I recently found out that PDF.js is adding full annotation editing support to the library, which can be tracked here: PDF.js editing. I think this could be a great opportunity to push forward the fragment selector for PDFs to try to integrate it with PDF.js.

I also opened an issue in PDF.js to ask if it would be possible to save annotations outside the PDF in JSON format following the Web Annotation Data Model, in addition to the native PDF annotation format inside the PDF.

Hopefully both projects can collaborate on this to move forward Web Annotation Data Model and enable interoperable annotation tools. Fingers crossed!

Thank you!

[ylc395]

It seems that pdf's annotation is more complex than Web Annotation so we can not just transofrm pdf's annotation to Web Annotation. For example, pdf's annotation can be random shape while we can only mark a rectangle by web annotation.

What do you think?

[reckart]

Web Annotation spec also supports non-rectangular selections: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/#svg-selector

[robcast]

You can see an example of a non-rectangular SVG selector in this IIIF cookbook recipe: https://iiif.io/api/cookbook/recipe/0261-non-rectangular-commenting/