export attachment without annotations?

[tom12]

Hi, maybe this has a simple solution but i can't find it:

Is it possible to export a pdf attachment with all annotations removed (e.g. for sharing with a colleague)? Or do i have to keep separate copies of all original pdfs to do that?

I've seen that in OSX Preview you can mark all annotations at once (using the Informations CMD+I dialogue) and remove them, but this requires exporting the pdf first and then do the removal.

cheers,

tom

[Jon]

No, you can't. The highlights and notes are embedded in the pdfs themselves. If Bookends (or Preview, or any other app) removes annotations, they are gone (i.e. deleted from the pdf).

Jon
Sonny Software

[tom12]

Thanks, Jon!

I think this would be a nice feature to have, and does not seem to be too complicated to implement (from a point of view of a non-developer ) as I can achieve this with a few clicks in OSX. The alternatives are either to do it by hand (a nightmare if you want to give you colleague a bunch of papers) or to save a non-annotated version of each attachment (which would considerably slow down the workflow).

best,

tom

[Jon]

You mean you want Bookends to create a copy of the pdf, strip out attachments, and move that copy to somewhere (i.e. the desktop, or wherever the "save" is to)? Yes, it's probably do-able, but (and no disrespect intended) it sounds like a Swiss army knife type of feature that is only tangentially related to reference management. I avoid adding features that require a UI component (menu option, checkbox, etc.) unless it's something a significant number of people will use. The forum is a good way to gauge that. What do others think? Useful, or clutter and bloat?

Jon
Sonny Software

[tom12]

hi jon,

E.g., Sente has such a feature and there is no additional dialogue. when you right-click on a pdf attachment, you can choose between export with annotations and export without annotations (see attached pic). of course, i have no clue if they treat their annotations in a different way. I'm not talking about choosing which annotations to remove, just a choice between two options. Alternatively, one might just implement a default option to automatically keep an original pdf of each attachment in a separate "originals" folder.

cheers,

tom

[Jon]

Sente does treat annotations in a different way (they have their own proprietary PDF markup). But note that we don't have an "export pdf" option (you do that by drag and dropping the pdf proxy icon, which is faster than using a menu), so this would actually add three UI elements (Export PDF -> 2 options).

In any case, it's not a matter of whether such a thing can be done (it is a bit more complicated than you might imagine), it's whether it should be done or is it just another complication for an app that already has hundreds of options. So I would like to hear what others think. As I said, this where this forum is very helpful.

Jon
Sonny Software

[tom12]

fully agree!

actually, given that the pdf proxy icon can be used for export, one additional menu entry "export non-annotated pdf" (or alternatively, if the original were stored separately, "show non-annotated pdf in finder") would be enough

tom

[Jon]

And if this were implemented, what would be removed? Annotations (meaning comments and notes)? Or all markup (meaning highlighting, drawings like rectangles, etc.)?

Jon
Sonny Software

[tom12]

for my own workflow, it means that there should not be any colors, highlighting, drawings or notes left, or any reference to myself as the author of those notes. it would mean removing everything that can be removed, just as in OSX Preview where i can just select ALL annotations and remove them in one go.

let me elaborate why i would like and make regular use of this feature:

i have collected many published papers (pdf) over the years, but my university (and those of my colleagues) only have access to a given set of journals, so we regularly have to rely on our own collections instead of just downloading a fresh pdf.
whenever i start a new project with co-authors, we open a dropbox folder (e.g.) and there we collect the relevant literature for our project. this means we need a clean pdf version of each publication that each of us can then use for their own purpose (or annotation). importantly, i don't want to share a pdf that has my highlighting all over it, which might not even be relevant for the given project (i use a given pdf for several projects and purposes, e.g. teaching and research; with corresponding annotations).

a second application is literature for students: when i set up a seminar, i want to be able to select a few papers (that i have prepared e.g. in a group in BE) and post them on a seminar or course website as reading material for students. again, i don't want to share any of my annotations with students.

actually, in an ideal world there would be a kind of "bulk export" of non-annotated pdfs (e.g. by collecting them in a group first and export the whole group's attachments; but this is not really necessary in my case, as i'm talking about 10-20 pdfs usually that i need to export and would be willing to export manually).

the point is that i would have regular need of this feature and it would save me a lot of time if my reference manager could do this (even if i had access to the original pdf from the internet). Ideally, my reference manager would allow me to import and keep just one pdf of a given publication and not worry about removing annotations. I want my reference manager to be the only place where i store publications so i don't have to keep separater copies of my pdfs in order to be able to share them.

as i wrote earlier, i would not mind if BE just kept an original in a separate folder by default (a choice in the preferences or upon import), with some way to reveal a given original pdf in the finder.

a third, potential, application is the following: suppose i have annotated a pdf for one project. now i want to start annotating a clean version of the same pdf for another project. then BE would allow me to attach a clean version of the same pdf as a second attachment.

tom

[nicka]

I'd use this too, and would also prefer all mark-up to be removed from the exported pdf.

Roughly the same reason – I often share papers with colleagues, students etc., but don't want to send them my notes too.

[ozean]

Same here – I often (several times per week) mail PDFs to students and colleagues and in these cases I usually prefer to do so with attachments removed. I.e. for me it would be even more comfortable to have this as an option when e-mailing an article.

(As an off topic aside: It would be great if you could auto-populate the subject field in an e-mail in these cases with the title of the publication – at least for those cases when one only does send one article…)

Thanks for your consideration!

[benjaminpelissie]

+1 It would be very convenient to send PDFs without attachment, as it is usually intended to be shared and so to leave our own (local) workflow. At least I would see it as the default behavior of BE when clicking that "Email selected references" button.
Ben

[Jon]

There are a number of problems with having Bookends email pdfs without annotations. A major one is that Bookends would have to create a copy of the pdf and send the path of that to Mail for the attachment. Bookends would not be able to delete the copy, because it wouldn't know when Mail sent it (or if it was even sent at all). So the user would have to clean that up. One option would be to create it in the Temporary folder, which would be invisible to the user. But then these pdfs would accumulate, potentially taking up GB of disk space, until the user reboots the computer and the Temporary folder is emptied. Another possibility would be to put the copy in the Trash. Mail will send attachments that are in the Trash (at least for now, but of course that could change with an OS update).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

OK, I'll bite. I've implemented all of these features (export pdf without annotations, email pdf without annotations (there's a new preferences -> Internet setting for that), and use the article title as the subject in the email if only one reference is selected).

If any of the posters asking for this want to test the beta, please contact me at support@sonnysoftware.com

Jon
Sonny Software

[tom12]

Wow, I'm impressed! I'll send you an email.

tom