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Looking for PDF collaboration (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by EarMaster@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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I am looking for a solution to collaborative PDF editing (mostly annotations). I already have a Nextcloud installation with Office for several members so it would be great if it could be integrated, but it is not necessary.

What I mainly want is the possibility to add and view annotations made by several users on the same file at the same time.

Do you have a suggestion?

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[–] EarMaster@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I will look into these, do you know if they support collaborative annotations?

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Stirling PDF

https://docs.stirlingpdf.com/Functionality/Read-and-Annotate/

Read & Annotate is a full-featured PDF viewer that lets you:

Read PDFs in a clean, focused interface
Add annotations, comments, and notes
Highlight and markup text
Draw freehand on pages
Add shapes, arrows, and callouts
Insert text boxes and sticky notes
Collaborate by marking up documents
Save annotated PDFs for sharing

Think of it as your digital PDF notepad - read, review, and mark up documents all in one place.

It says it do. Other than that, I've never deployed it.

[–] EarMaster@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I have an installation of Stirling PDF, but in my short experiment it had no ability to collaborate on the same document.

Every edit created a new copy of the document downloaded to the user. The annotations weren't tagged to the individual user and sending different versions of a PDF from user to user is not what I am looking for.

Stirling is a single user software in that regards. I haven't tested the also mentioned BentoPDF but I suspect it to be the same as it is also trying to be a PDF toolbox like Acrobat. PdfDing has a slightly different approach it might be an option if OnlyOffice does not work out.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hmmmm...sorry to steer you wrongly. I mean, gosh it says it does all annotation and collaboration. I assumed 'collaboration' to mean multi-user collaboration. Hard to collaborate by yourself.

[–] EarMaster@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I am thankful for any input. Maybe it helps someone else looking for a similar thing.

I think the collaborative part means sending PDFs from user to user and maintaining the ability to edit annotations. That may work for many use cases - a lot of businesses may be fine with that when email is still the communication medium of choice.