---
title: "Specify annotation appearance streams in PDF | Nutrient SDK"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/web/annotations/appearance-streams/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/web/annotations/appearance-streams.md"
last_updated: "2026-05-25T17:21:17.294Z"
description: "Discover how to effectively use appearance streams in annotations to improve visual presentation and user experience in your projects."
---

# Annotation appearance streams

An annotation or form element in a PDF can specify an appearance stream, which allows the annotation to be rendered differently than its default annotation rendering. Each appearance stream is a self-contained PDF object that will be rendered inside the annotation bounding box. (See also: [What Are Appearance Streams?](https://www.nutrient.io/blog/what-are-appearance-streams/))

Most appearance streams are _just a visual representation of an annotation’s properties_. This helps third-party PDF viewers that may be unable to directly generate a visual representation of those properties; these viewers can render the appearance stream instead. Appearance streams also ensure that the annotations in a document are displayed exactly as they were created in the source PDF editor, without subtle differences that could occur if the third-party PDF viewer had to recreate the annotations from raw annotation data.

However, sometimes appearance streams contain surprises. For example, square annotations may have an appearance stream with a photograph. There are a lot of edge cases out there, so one cannot disable appearance stream rendering and assume the annotation will look the same or even close to it.

If you’re using Document Engine, note that appearance stream rendering only works for documents uploaded after upgrading to 2020.3.0.

Syncing appearance streams is currently not supported by Nutrient Instant.
---

## Related pages

- [Annotation notes](/guides/web/annotations/customization/annotation-notes.md)
- [Configuring annotation presets in our viewer](/guides/web/customizing-the-interface/using-annotation-presets.md)
- [Customizing display logic for annotations](/guides/web/best-practices/business-logic.md)
- [Hiding annotations in our viewer](/guides/web/annotations/customization/hiding-annotations.md)
- [Annotation customization](/guides/web/annotations/custom-rendered-annotations.md)
- [Store custom data in annotations](/guides/web/annotations/custom-data-in-annotations.md)