1. Overview

The Annotations plugin imports annotations from supported readers to calibre.

2. Supported readers

Collect News clippings: Annotations made to periodicals generated by calibre may be collected to a single book. This feature can be enabled in the configuration dialog.

Supported readers may support either or both methods of adding annotations to calibre:

• Exporting: The reader is able to export annotations, typically via email or iTunes File Sharing. The exported annotation content is parsed and added to calibre by selecting Import Annotations from… in the Annotations plugin dropdown menu, or by dragging an annotations file to the Annotations plugin icon. Additional instructions for exporting annotations from individual readers may be found by clicking the down arrow on the Annotations plugin menu, selecting Import annotations from… to open the import dialog, then clicking Help.
• Fetching: When a supported reader device is connected to calibre, annotations may be fetched directly from the reader. For iOS reader applications, fetching requires the iOS reader applications plugin. USB devices do not require any additional plugins. Fetched annotation content is parsed and added to calibre by selecting Fetch Annotations from… when a supported device is connected.

3. Creating a custom column for Annotations

By default, the Annotations plugin will append annotations to existing content in the Comments column. It is recommended that you create a custom column for Annotations.

4. Metadata matching: How the plugin decides which book will receive annotations

After the incoming annotations have been analyzed, the Import Annotations dialog is displayed with a summary of available annotations. You may preview annotations from a specific book by selecting it and clicking Preview, or double-clicking the book.

Annotated books are scanned for their Title, Author and UUID metadata.

Books whose metadata matches a book in your library are displayed with a green background. When these annotations are imported, they will be added to the corresponding book without any further interaction.

Books with a partial metadata match are displayed with a yellow background. When these annotations are imported, you will be shown a summary of the matching and mismatching metadata, and prompted to confirm the likely destination, as shown in the dialog below.

Books with no matching metadata are displayed with a red background. When these annotations are imported, they will be added to the currently selected book in calibre after confirmation.

5. Styling Annotations

You can control the appearance of imported annotations in the Modify appearance dialog.

An annotation is composed of three elements - Timestamp, Text and Note. To change the display order of these elements, select the element in the Annotation elements section, then use the up or down arrows to move it. A live preview is displayed as you make changes.

To include a horizontal rule between annotations, enable the checkbox in the Options section.

The Timestamp format is configurable. For a list of available formats, click the help button to the right of Timestamp format.

After clicking OK, you will be prompted to update existing annotations to the new settings.

6. Finding Annotations

You can find annotations previously imported to calibre using the Find Annotations dialog.

7. Support

For more information on the Annotations plugin, visit calibre's Plugins forum.