react-native-pdf-annotation

The react-native-pdf-annotation NPM package provides PDF annotation for Android and iOS using MuPDF. This package offers features such as drawing on PDF pages, underlining text, highlighting text, and striking out text in PDFs. Annotations can only be made on locally downloaded PDFs, as MuPDF supports local PDFs only.

Therefore, you need to install a file download package like rn-fetch-blob or react-native-blob-util. Refer to the rn-fetch-blob or react-native-blob-util package installation guides to download PDF files from remote URLs.

Installation

npm install react-native-pdf-annotation

Android

Go to your android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml file and add the MuPDFActivity inside the application tag as shown below.

<application>
    ....
   <activity
        android:name=".MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        .... 
        >
        ....
      </activity>
      <activity android:name="com.artifex.mupdfdemo.MuPDFActivity" />   <!--   Add this   -->
  <activity android:name="com.artifex.mupdfdemo.BookMarkActivity" />   <!-- Add this if you want bookmarks -->
</application>

IOS

IOS is currently not fully supported by this package. However, we can implement it for iOS. See this IOS Document.

Usage

import  *  as React from  'react';
import { 
openPdf, 
pdfEventEmitter, 
pdfEvents, 
type PageChangeDataProp, 
type PdfCloseDataProp, 
type PdfSaveCloseDataProp 
} from 'react-native-pdf-annotation';

// ...

function App() {
	// ...
	
	React.useEffect(()  => {
		const pageChangeEvent = pdfEventEmitter.addListener( 
			pdfEvents.onPdfPageChange, (event: PageChangeDataProp) => {
				console.log(event, pdfEvents.onPdfPageChange);
			}
		);
		const pdfCloseEvent = pdfEventEmitter.addListener(
			pdfEvents.onCloseWithSave, (event: PdfSaveCloseDataProp) => {
				console.log(event, pdfEvents.onCloseWithSave);
			}
		);
		const pdfSaveCloseEvent = pdfEventEmitter.addListener(
			pdfEvents.onCloseWithoutSave, (event: PdfCloseDataProp) => {
				console.log(event, pdfEvents.onCloseWithoutSave);
			}
		);
		return () => {
			pageChangeEvent.remove();
			pdfCloseEvent.remove();
			pdfSaveCloseEvent.remove();
		};
	}, []);
	
	// ...
	
 openPdf(filePath, {
    isEnableAnnot: true, // Show or Hide the annotation button
    isEnableBookMark: true, // Show or Hide the bookmarks buttons
    continuePage: 2, // Continue Reading Page Number
    isEnableCustomFooterColor: true, // Enable/Disable Custom Footer Color (Android Only)
    isEnableCustomHeaderColor: true, // Enable/Disable Custom Header Color (Android Only)
  }).then((res) => {
      console.log(res, 'Pdf Opened');
    }).catch((e) => {
      console.log(e, 'open pdf error');
    });

}

// ...

Methods

Method	Type	Description
openPdf(filePath, config)	Promise	To open the downloaded PDF file for reading and annotation

Config

The first parameter of the openPdf() method is filePath, which must be a local file path of type string.

This is an Object Which you pass as second parameter to the openPdf() Method.

Key	type	Required	Default	IOS	Android	Description
isEnableAnnot	Boolean	No	true	✅	✅	A boolean value that decides whether to enable annotation
isEnableBookMark	Boolean	No	true	✅	✅	A boolean value that decides whether to enable bookmarks
continuePage	Number	No	0	✅	✅	The page number from which to continue reading the PDF
isEnableCustomHeaderColor	Boolean	No	false	❌	✅	A boolean value that decides whether to enable custom header color
isEnableCustomFooterColor	Boolean	No	false	❌	✅	A boolean value that decides whether to enable custom footer color

Custom Header and Footer Color Android Configuration

Go to your android/app/src/main/res/values. If the res and values directories does not exist, then you have to create it and continue the below steps. Open colors.xml file. If the colors.xml file does not exist, then you have to create it and continue the below steps.

Add Header Custom Color named pdf_header_background_color and Footer Custom Color named pdf_footer_background_color.

The colors.xml file looks like this:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <resources>
    <color name="pdf_header_background_color">#00FF00</color>
    <color name="pdf_footer_background_color">#0000FF</color>
  </resources>

Note: These colors are applied when the isEnableCustomHeaderColor and isEnableCustomFooterColor props are true accordingly.

Events

onPdfPageChange

This event is triggered whenever the page number changes. The returned data includes:

Key	Type	Description
pageNumber	Number	The current page number
totalPages	Number	The total number of pages in the PDF

onCloseWithSave

This event is triggered when the PDF changes and is saved upon closing. The returned data includes:

Key	Type	Description
currentPage	Number	The current page number
totalPages	Number	The total number of pages in the PDF
filePath	String	The saved file path

onCloseWithoutSave

This event is triggered when the PDF is closed without making changes or saving. The returned data includes:

Key	Type	Description
currentPage	Number	The current page number
totalPages	Number	The total number of pages in the PDF

IOS Configuration

Step 1

Clone the IOS Configuration Files repository using the command below.

git clone https://github.com/senthalan2/MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files.git

Step 2

Go to the MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files directory and move the Classes and libmupdf (located inside the IOS_Library directory) directories, as well as the build_libs.sh, common.h, and common.m files, to the Your_Project/ios directory. Additionally, transfer the BookMarks, DB, and Utils directories, which are needed for the bookmarks feature, to the Your_Project/ios directory. Finally, move the PdfAnnotation.h and PdfAnnotation.mm files (located in the Modules directory) to the Your_Project/ios directory. After completing these steps, your project's ios directory should look like the image below.

Step 3

Open your project in Xcode by opening YourProjectName.xcworkspace as shown in the image below.

Step 4

Drag and drop the Classes, BookMarks, DB, Utils directories and the common.h, common.m, PdfAnnotation.h and PdfAnnotation.mm files into your project in Xcode, as shown in the image below.

Next, create a Resources group in Xcode. Move all icons from the Resources directory (located in the cloned MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files directory) to the Your_Project/ios/Resources directory. Then, drag and drop the icons from the Resources directory into this group in Xcode, as shown in the images below.

Step 5

Add the libmupdf.a and libmupdfthird.a files, which are located in the Libraries directory of the cloned MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files repository, to your project target under Build Phases -> Link Binary With Libraries.

Step 6

In your project's Targets section, add another target by clicking the add target (plus icon) button. In the popup, select the Other tab and choose External Build System under the Other section. Click Next, enter Generate as the Product Name, and then click Finish. Refer to the video below for a demonstration of adding an External Build System target.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7278ff09-3612-4d92-8071-70c0b102145e

Step 7

Select the Generate target. Under Info -> External Build Tool Configuration, enter generate as the Arguments and choose the libmupdf directory path. In this case, the libmupdf directory is located inside the ios directory, so you should enter libmupdf as the Directory path, as shown in the image below.

Step 8

Select your project's directory and open Build Settings. In Build Settings, search for User Header Search Paths. Add the mupdf library path as libmupdf/include to this section, as shown in the image below. The libmupdf directory was moved from the cloned repository MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files to Your_Project/ios. The include directory, which contains the mupdf library, is located inside the libmupdf directory.

In the same Build Settings, search for Objective-C Automatic Reference Counting and change its value to No, as shown in the image below.

Step 9

Select your project's target and open Build Phases. Click the plus button and choose New Run Script Phase from the menu to add a run script for libmupdf, as shown in the image below.

Step 10

In the Run Script section, enter the following script to run mupdf's build script. This script generates the supported files for mupdf.

bash build_libs.sh

In the Run Script, add the output files under the Output Files section, as shown in the image below.

Step 11

Drag the Run Script section from the bottom to above the Link Binary With Libraries and Compile Sources sections, as shown in the image below.

Step 12

That's it! We have integrated PDF Annotation in iOS using MuPdf. Now, clean the build folder and erase derived data.

Clean the Build Folder:

In Xcode, go to the menu bar and select Product -> Clean Build Folder.

Erase Derived Data:

Go to Xcode -> Preferences/Settings -> Locations tab. Click on the arrow next to the Derived Data folder path to open it in Finder. Delete the contents of the Derived Data folder.

Follow the Below Steps:

Click the scheme menu and select Generate. Then, run the build, as shown in the image below.

After that, change the scheme from Generate to Your_Project and run the build again.

Issue in IOS

If you face an issue like the one shown in the image while building the Generate scheme,

follow these steps:

Remove the libmupdf directory from Your_Project/ios.
Again Move the libmupdf directory from the cloned repository MuPdf_IOS_Configuration_Files to Your_Project/ios.
Re-run the Generate scheme, ensuring that the selected device is Catalyst, as shown in the below image.

Contributing

See the contributing guide to learn how to contribute to the repository and the development workflow.

License

MIT