add highlights/annotations/notes without editing the actual document (asap 911!)

[marat569]

Hello! I have a couple of PDF documents that are extremely large in size, and would like to add highlights (called comments in foxit).

I use them for school, and have them on multiple devices, but the problem is that I need want to sync the modifications throughout the devices via my dropbox but not the actual .PDF file -- that stays local and unchanged.

Say I have stuff.pdf.
I want to highlight something in stuff.pdf.
I want stuff.pdf to stay the same, but when there are highlights they go to say stuff.fdf or whatever extension.
stuff.fdf is synced via dropbox and all devices that have stuff.pdf on them locally will see the changes.

I've tried the "Export/Import" comment function, but really it gets annoying having to export comments every time, then remember to click "don't save", and when I go on my note-taking laptop, remember to import the fdf file.

If only:
1) fdf file auto-updated every time a comment is added
2) the pdf loads automatically reading the fdf file (changes are superficial, and the pdf file itself is still vanilla/unchanged)

I'm sure somebody must have to have something done like this for a while now.

P.S
1) Even though I have Dropbox PRO, storing all my PDFs and syncing frequently will kill my drop-box storage space and bandwidth (also campus does not have the fastest speed to update large files)

2) I really don't want to edit the pdf and have to worry about backups. I have backups already, I don't want backups of backups.

Thanks in advance!

[richell_huang]

Obviously, your requirement is unachievable. After you make some comments to the stuff.pdf file, it will ask you to save or not save when you close the file, you say you want stuff.pdf to stay the same, so you must click don't save every time when you close the file, which is inevitable.
It won't export your comments as .fdf file unless you try the "Export" comment function, so you only have one choice, either trying "Export/Import" comment function so you don't need to save the changed pdf file, or keep one original file and save the changed file as a new file name so all comments can be shown on other devices without any operation.

[marat569]

Obviously, your requirement is unachievable. After you make some comments to the stuff.pdf file, it will ask you to save or not save when you close the file, you say you want stuff.pdf to stay the same, so you must click don't save every time when you close the file, which is inevitable.
It won't export your comments as .fdf file unless you try the "Export" comment function, so you only have one choice, either trying "Export/Import" comment function so you don't need to save the changed pdf file, or keep one original file and save the changed file as a new file name so all comments can be shown on other devices without any operation.

The functionality is there, if only there was say an addon coded that does exactly this. Atleast I found out I can double-click the fdf to open the PDF

[richell_huang]

Yes, you can double click on the fdf file to open the PDF file auto as long as the fdf file name is the same as original pdf file and they should be saved in the same directory, but you still need to export the comment as fdf file.
So i said you can either try Export comment function so you don't need to save the changed pdf file, or keep one original file and save the changed file as a new file name so all comments can be shown on other devices without any operation.