A.nnotate blog

The next version of A.nnotate will be out in November - it includes a number of new features to make it easier to collaborate on PDF and Word documents in the browser. We were planning a Sept release, but delayed it to give us time to include various extra features which users were requesting.

The main changes will be support for image annotation so you can attach notes to figures on PDF and Word documents as well as to highlighted text. To make sharing and organizing documents easier, there will also be shared folders so invited colleagues will automatically have access to documents in the shared area. You can opt to receive email notifications when someone adds comments to your documents. There is a new home page with news on invitations and recent comments and shared documents.

Text annotation will support strikethrough and text-insert styles, and there will be more control of note visibility: as well as notes shared with all readers of a document, you can mark notes as private (so only you can see them) or as feedback to the document owner. Document owners also get more control over who can add notes and tags, and can close documents for comments when the review period is over.

A new Export document and notes as PDF feature makes for easier printing.

There has been a lot of interest in using A.nnotate as a component within existing document / content management systems; the A.nnotate API allows you to integrate A.nnotate into your current systems and can be used with local installations of A.nnotate.

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions for new features - and let us know if you have more requests (by email to support [at] nnotate.com or using the comments below).

Work is well underway for two major developments in the coming months.

First, the standalone server will be out in July. This is for anyone who wants to run A.nnotate on their own server on their intranet, integrate it with existing systems, or be absolutely sure where your confidential documents are physically located. Beta testing for the install process will begin in a couple of weeks and there will be an announcement here when it’s available. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed if you haven’t done so already?

Second, there will be a major upgrade in September with a collection of features people have been asking for. In particular, you’ll get:

• Image annotation with points and regions selectable on images in both HTML and PDF. This will also work for scanned PDFs so even if the text isn’t readable, you will still be able to add annotations to the right place.
• Folders to organize your documents. You’ll be able to create folders within folders, move groups of documents around, and keep your document store clean and tidy. Note that you will also be able to add tags / keywords as at present.
• Shared folders so that rather than sharing just one document you’ll be able to share a folder with a particular group of people. They will automatically be able to see and annotate anything you put in there. Useful for accumulating collective resources where each item doesn’t necessarily justify a separate message.
• Notifications so you can get an email sent when a new document has been added to a shared folder or someone has added a note somewhere. These will be optional of course, and easy to switch on and off. We’ll also be adding RSS feeds for comments on documents.

There’s still time to add features to this list, so if you’ve got a burning need, let us know ASAP!