Open source tools for PDF manipulation (esp enable commenting)

Question

I'd like to find some very capable PDF tools or libraries. In particular, I'd like to be able to enable commenting, as Acrobat can do.

Ideally this would be a Mac OS/X tool; failing that something usable from Python or Ruby would be good.

I've already looked at

• pdftk, which doesn't appear to know about comments
• iText, which frankly I haven't figured out well enough to know if it handles comments or not

Sorry, was a little unclear: I've got the Wikipedia list, I'm looking for recommendations.

Answer 1

Both commercial and free:

Wikipedia / List of PDF software

As far as open source goes, I can't help you I'm afraid. We use Adobe's magic.

Answer 2

IText is worth sticking with - it is a superb tool for editing and creation and there is a DotNet version as well.

Answer 3

I can't unfortunately provide a tool to enable the commenting flag - I'm looking for one myself, but I can point you at an alternative PDF reader called PDF XChange Viewer (which has a free portable version) that itself has the full commenting capabilities of Acrobat afaict without having to enable that flag. It is a windows application but the portable version works perfectly in Wine and Crossover on Mac and Linux in my experience. I personally have Acrobat 7 sitting in a VM for this purpose because I'd rather use Adobe Reader, so I wish there was a nice simple command! Also, Preview.app on Mac as of Leopard has commenting functionality, though it's fiddly and clunky by comparison with Adobes or PDF XChange Viewer's.

Answer 4

I found http://pdf-house.blogspot.com/ as a good directory for free PDF tools and libraries.

Answer 5

According to this thread from Apr 2010 on the Adobe forums:

"You will need to purchase/license Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions Server for automated enabling of comments."

and

"There are no desktop APIs in Acrobat or Reader to accomplish this."