Is there a way to merge PDF annotations with a Kindle PDR file?

[Sinlight]

Hello,

I previously asked for help with this issue in the Kindle forum but they were not able to solve it, so I'm hoping for better luck here. I have also changed PC but am still getting the same problem.


I am a university student and I have to read a lot of PDFs. I read them on my Kindle 3 Keyboard and make notes and highlights on the device. I want to be able to transfer the annotated PDF file to my PC for writing essays. However, Kindle does not modify the PDF file and save the annotations directly on it, instead it creates a seperate PDR file which has the annotation information.

I know that the Kindle creates a MyClippings.txt file which contains the annotations but I do not want to use this; I want to be able to display the complete annotated PDF.

I have found a program online which seems to be able to merge the PDR annotation information with the PDF: https://code.google.com/p/kindle-annotations/wiki/Usage However, this is a command prompt tool and I have not be able to get it to work yet. Here is what I have tried so far:

In the instructions on the website it says "You have to call java -jar kindle-annotator-0.3.jar <parameters> to run the annotator". It also says that the parameters are:
-in/--input filename Specify an input file.
-out/--output filename Specify an output file.

I have downloaded the newest version of the program, 0.4.1. I already have java installed and I have saved all the files for the annotator program to a folder with the filepath C:\Users\Barnaby\K\. I have also saved the PDF and PDR files in the same folder, they are called something.pdr and something.pdf

So, when I open command prompt, it is in filepath C:\Users\Barnaby then I typed cd K to change to C:\Users\Barnaby\K I then typed set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\Users\Barnaby\K. Then to specify the location of my java.exe program I typed set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin.

Then to run the program I typed java C:\Users\Barnaby\K\kindle-annotator-0.4.1.jar -in C:\Users\Barnaby\K\something.pdr -out C:\Users\Barnaby\K\something.pdf . But I got the error message saying Could not load or find main class C:\Users\Barnaby\K\kindle-annotator-0.4.1.jar.

So I changed the file location that command prompt is in by typing cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin. Finally I tried typing java C:\Users\Barnaby\K\kindle-annotator-0.4.1.jar -in C:\Users\Barnaby\K\something.pdr -out C:\Users\Barnaby\K\something.pdf but I got the error message again

[rkomar]

Try "java -jar <jar-file>". It looks like you're missing the "-jar" part.

[Sinlight]

Thanks for the suggestion, I seem to be getting closer to the solution but this time I got a different error message saying 2014-11-05 11:18:19,078 ERROR [main] de.berber.kindle.annotator.PDFAnnotator: IO Error while writing result file C:\Users\Barnaby\K\something.pdf

[DaleDe]

Does the folder C:\Users\Barnaby\K exist? You might try just entering the output filename and place it in the folder you are in.

Dale

[rkomar]

From the homepage of the software, it looks like the --in and --out arguments are both PDF files. I guess it assumes that the input PDF and PDR files have the same name (except for the suffix). So, give the name of your original PDF file as the argument to --in, and give a new PDF filename as the argument to --out.

[Sinlight]

rkomar, my Kindle saves all the annotation information in the PDR file and the PDF file is left unaltered, so how can I specify for the --in argument that information in the PDR file should be combined with the PDF file?

[rkomar]

I haven't tested it, but I assume that if you specify the original PDF file name, it will also look for the PDR file in the same place with just the suffix changed. To create a new PDF file, the program needs both the original PDF and the PDR file. It can't do it just with the PDR file alone.

[Sinlight]

Briliant, it worked, thank you very much for you help! The annotations don't all match up to the ones I created on my Kindle but I think that is a problem with the program itself, the instructions you gave me definitely create an annotated pdf. Cheers!