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Obsidian Extract PDF Annotations Plugin

This is a plugin for Obsidian. It extracts Annotations from PDF Files.

Usage

This Plugin visits all PDF files in a given directory and extracts comments and highlights from the PDF files. It treats the first line of every comment as Topic for grouping the comments.

Assume we have in a folder in our Vault containing PDF files, e.g:

vault_folder

and we have highlighted the Julia Hello World Programm with a note 'Hello World':

pdf_note

In the editor (e.g. _Extract) we run the plugin's command Extract PDF Annotations (Hotkey Ctrl-P for all Commands). This will fetch all annotations in the PDF files in the current folder and sort them by Topic:

extracted_annotations

As such, you can relate comments for your topics (here 'Hello World') from several PDF files.

Commands

  • Extract PDF Annotations Works when editing a markdown note. Searches all PDF files in current Folder for annotations, and inserts them at the current position of the open note.
  • Extract PDF Annotations on single file Works while displaying a PDF file. Extracts annotations from this file and writes them to the note Annotations for <filename>

Plugin Settings:

  • Use the first line of the comment as 'Topic' (and sort accordingly), or not
  • Use folder name or PDF-Filename for sorting

Versions

1.0.4 clean up hyphenation #5 1.0.3 updated highlight fetching to use QuadPoints instead of Rectangles

Installation / Build

Fetch repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/munach/obsidian-extract-pdf-annotations.git
$ cd obsidian-extract-pdf-annotations

Install dependencies:

$ npm i

Transpile main.ts:

$ npm run build

Then create the plugin directory and copy the files main.js and manifest.json, e.g.;

$ mkdir ~/MyVault/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-extract-pdf-annotations
$ cp main.js manifest.json ~/MyVault/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-extract-pdf-annotations/

Enable the plugin in Obsidan's setting.

Issues / Bugs

[] works only on left-to-right highlights

Credits

This plugin builds on ideas from Alexis Rondeaus Plugin https://github.com/akaalias/obsidian-extract-pdf-highlights, but uses obsidians build-in pdf.js library.

Author

Franz Achermann