NOTE: Missing Images

This article lost its example images during a KB system migration. We are working to restore or recreate them.

Background

When you create various annotations (notably Freehand)in our annotation aware viewers and embed them into PDF files, you would expect that re-opening them in our annotation viewers would have them render the same as they looked when they went in. (In other words, that annotations created in our viewers would properly "Round-trip" to embedded PDF annotations and back).

This happens because by default, when embedding annotations into a PDF using our PdfAnnotationDataExporter, it tries to only include properties available withing native PDF annotation for the types that you're embedding. This helps to ensure that all PDF readers will see the annotations the same way. However, a side effect is that the embedded annotations no longer contain all settings that were present at creation time. This can lead to annotations that "look wrong" when re-opened as seen in the example images.

Annotation You Saved	Annotation You See

You can override this default behavior by setting the PdfAnnotationDataExporter.AlwaysEmbedAnnotationData property to TRUE.

Note that this means that some PDF viewers may not render the annotations in exactly the same way, but it will ensure that DotImage does.

Original Article

Q10335 - HOWTO: Freehand Annotations Embedded into PDF Don't Render As Expected

Last Update

2026-11-11 - TD - (Noted missing images)