Add Instant comments to PDFs in Flutter

Nutrient Flutter SDK provides Instant Comments, a user interface (UI) for viewing, adding, and deleting comments in PDF documents. Instant Comments requires Nutrient Instant.

Comments support collaboration in the viewer. Multiple users can discuss specific sections of a PDF document, and Nutrient Instant sends updates in real time.

Licensing

Comment licensing runs on the server, not on the client. This feature requires a separate component in your Nutrient Document Engine license. Without this component, your app can’t view, search, or add comments. Contact our Sales team to add comments to your license. You don’t need an additional component in your Nutrient Flutter SDK license.

If you’re a new customer, you can try comments without a license key. If you’re an existing customer, ask our Sales team for a trial license.

Terminology

Before you configure comments, review these terms:

• Root annotation — The annotation linked to all comments in a single thread.
• Comment thread — A group of comments associated with the same root annotation.
• Comment — A single comment added by a user.

Root annotation types

Each comment links to a root annotation. Comments with the same root annotation belong to one comment thread.

Instant Comments supports two root annotation types:

• Markup annotation — A user starts a comment thread by selecting text and tapping the comment menu item. The created text markup annotation acts as the root annotation.
• Comment marker annotation — A user adds a comment marker annotation anywhere in a PDF document to start a comment thread.

Get started

The Instant Comments tool is disabled by default. If your Document Engine license includes Instant Comments, enable the tool by setting the enableInstantComments configuration option to true.

For NutrientInstantView on Android and iOS, set enableInstantComments in NutrientViewConfiguration:

NutrientInstantView(
  serverUrl: 'YOUR_SERVER',
  jwt: 'YOUR_JWT',
  configuration: NutrientViewConfiguration(
    enableInstantComments: true,
  ),
)

Add a comment

Users can add comments in two ways, depending on the root annotation type.

Mentions aren’t supported

Nutrient Flutter SDK doesn’t support mentioning users in comments. Mentions are only available in Nutrient Web SDK.

Delete a comment

Document Engine currently doesn’t expose APIs for deleting comments.

For more information about comments, refer to the corresponding Android and iOS guides.