"Download Annotated PDF" doesn't download annotations?

[eichb003]

I'm still learning Canvas, and created a group assignment without evidently setting the group component correctly. Now I have graded the group assignments submitted by one person from each group, leaving in-document feedback using SpeedGrader, and need to get my feedback to the rest of the students. 

So I click the "Download Annotated PDF" button, which saves a PDF...and the resultant PDF saves a tiny red flag wherever I commented, but no comment itself. Am I going to have to regrade everything in Word, replicating all of my in-document comments for all students? Am I misunderstanding what the "Download Annotated PDF" button does, and it doesn't download annotations? I'm feeling baffled right now that there would be a situation in which you'd want to save a document with the flag for an annotation but no actually annotation...

I looked at prior answers and they don't seem to be quite this situation, but I might have misread.

Thanks for any help.

[ericwerth · Accepted solution]

Hello  @eichb003 .  I just ran into this yesterday myself when working with a participant in a class I am teaching.  When I click on download annotated PDF, if opens the document in one of my web browser tabs.  On this if I scroll over where I left the comment, it appears.  This worked well for me when with this individual.  I just tested this, but if I save the annotated PDF and then select to open this in Adobe Reader, I can see the comments as well.  When I go to print, there is an option in my panel that appears to allow the comments to be printed as well (see below).

You might give this a try and see if it helps solve your problem, but if not please let us know.  Your printing options could be different depending on what program or browser is opening the document as well.

Good luck!

[eichb003]

Hi Eric,

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, the summarize function seems to be the key. It's strange that that step is necessary, but I'm glad there's a solution! Thank you for your help.

Best wishes,

Ryan

[ericwerth]

Glad to hear that this works  @eichb003 !  I was working in Acrobat Reader the other day and created some sticky note comments and noticed that they function similar to the annotations in SpeedGrader in terms of appearance and printing.  Word on the other hand automatically shows the comments when printed.  It would be interesting to know if functionality similar to Word could be programmed into Canvas or if it will be dependent on the functionality of Acrobat in the future as well.  I'll update this thread if I find something new.

Have a great spring!

[george_franz]

Unfortunately there's no easy way to fix this.  If you want a hard way, you can do it in Adobe Acrobat.

Go into the Javascript curly braces { } and then edit the "Will Print" section to say

{ 

this.flattenPages();

}

Then it will flatten the pages (basically like merging layers in a photo editor) into a single document.  The annotations then become visible on the printed document.  If you add it to the "will save" event then it will flatten before a save, and the annotations will become a permanent part of the file.

Not easy for the uninitiated - I'm about to add the javascript to the blank pdf worksheets I post so that (hopefully) the students annotations will appear automatically.

[rgibson1]

George's solution works!

[GideonWilliams]

Came across this today as not able to print comments via PDF download as explained above. Sadly Adobe Read no longer lets you do this so it would seem you need to find Adobe Acrobat Pro or similar.

The Acrobat Pro version has a flattening tool built in which requires a number of steps and can only be done per document. As of writing, I cannot print out the flattened comments as a PDF (I've contacted the Adobe COmmunity). The work around is to export the PDF to Word and there seems to be no problem there.

There is the option with printing to print a Summary of the annotations but this appears on the following page and replaces the existing annotations with bookmarks.

If anyone has a better and CHEAPER solution then do add to this thread...