Customizing the Note Icon on Android

There are various ways to customize how an annotation is shown and rendered on a page.

Note Hints

A small note icon indicator is displayed next to the actual annotation when it has text attached to it. It can be attached to the annotation either by programmatically setting it via setContents() on the annotation, or by adding it in the UI via the Note action in the editing menu.

Disabling Note Hinting

PdfActivity enables note hinting by default. You can disable it by using configuration.setAnnotationNoteHintingEnabled(false) when configuring your activity, like so:

// Disable note hinting.
val config = PdfActivityConfiguration.Builder(context)
    .setAnnotationNoteHintingEnabled(false)
    .build()

PdfActivity.showDocument(context, documentUri, config)
// Disable note hinting.
final PdfActivityConfiguration config =
    new PdfActivityConfiguration.Builder(context)
        .setAnnotationNoteHintingEnabled(false)
        .build();

PdfActivity.showDocument(context, documentUri, config);

Adding Note Hints to Your PdfFragment

PdfFragment won’t perform note hinting on its own, but it can use AnnotationNoteHinter to show the note icons. AnnotationNoteHinter is a drawable provider and can be added to your fragment using fragment.addDrawableProvider(noteHinter), like so:

val noteHinter = AnnotationNoteHinter(context)
fragment.addDrawableProvider(noteHinter)
final AnnotationNoteHinter noteHinter = new AnnotationNoteHinter(context);
fragment.addDrawableProvider(noteHinter);

💡 Tip: To learn how to implement a custom annotation note hinter, have a look at the CustomAnnotationNoteHinterProviderExample in the Catalog app.

Theming the AnnotationNoteHinter

The appearance of the AnnotationNoteHinter can be adjusted by providing a custom theme for it. The following attributes can be modified for pspdf__AnnotationNoteHinter:

Attribute Description
pspdf__useNoteHinterIntrinsicSize Whether to use the intrinsic size of the icon or the size specified in the theme.
pspdf__noteHinterWidth The width of the note icon.
pspdf__noteHinterHeight The height of the note icon.
pspdf__noteHinterTextMarkupLeftPadding Padding to apply for note icons on text markup annotations.
pspdf__noteHinterColor The color of the note icon.
pspdf__noteHinterAlpha The alpha value of the note icon.
pspdf__noteHinterIcon The icon that is used to indicate the annotation has a note.

An example would look like this:

<style name="PSPDFCatalog.Theme.Dark" parent="PSPDFKit.Theme.Dark">
    ...
    <item name="pspdf__annotationNoteHinterStyle">@style/PSPDFCatalog.Theme.Dark.AnnotationNoteHinterStyle</item>
</style>

...

<style name="PSPDFCatalog.AnnotationNoteHinter.Dark" parent="PSPDFKit.AnnotationNoteHinter">
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterColor">@color/pspdf__color_gray</item>
    <item name="pspdf__useNoteHinterIntrinsicSize">false</item>
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterWidth">24dp</item>
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterHeight">24dp</item>
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterTextMarkupLeftPadding">8dp</item>
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterAlpha">255</item>
    <item name="pspdf__noteHinterIcon">@drawable/pspdf__ic_caret</item>
</style>