Freetext annot not showing text

[pablodm00]

Description of the bug

Hello everyone,

I am currently developing an application on the Viktor.ai platform. During the development phase, the app runs locally in a virtual environment (Windows). However, after publishing, it runs on Linux servers managed by the platform.

I am using PyMuPDF to add FreeText annotations to a PDF document. While everything functions perfectly during local development, I’ve encountered an issue after publishing the app to their Linux servers:

The freetext annot gets created, but it does not show the text.

In a PDF editor (I am using Bluebeam Revu) I can resize the textbox, and it shows the text but in red

If I resize again, it now shows the text in the correct colour (black)

I’d appreciate any insights or suggestions on what could be causing this issue. Has anyone encountered a similar problem or can point me in the right direction?

Thank you in advance for your help!

How to reproduce the bug

annot_text = page_export.add_freetext_annot(rect=rect, text=text, fontsize= text_size, align=1)
annot_text.set_oc(oc_names)
annot_text.update()

PyMuPDF version

1.24.14

Operating system

Linux

Python version

3.11

[JorjMcKie]

This is no bug report but a Discussions item.

[JorjMcKie]

You are adding Optional Content information (.set_oc). This will change not only the annotation, but also make changes to the PDF's catalog.
Maybe the situation on the server side differs? Try without OC maybe.

[pablodm00]

hi, thanks for your help! i've just tried that and the behaviour is still the same.

[AntoineCarette]

Hello everyone,

Same problem here.

I'm running python 3.12.7 on Windows with PyMuPDF 1.25.1.

I'm trying to add a freetext annotation to a PDF document with the following code:

rect = fitz.Rect(0,0,100,100)
annot = page.add_freetext_annot(rect, "MY TEXT HERE", fontsize=8, fontname='helv', border_color=(0, 0, 0.5), text_color=(0, 0, 0.5), fill_color=(0.95, 0.95, 1), rotate=page.rotation, align=fitz.TEXT_ALIGN_LEFT)
annot.set_border(width=1)
annot.set_info(info={'name': 'Publication', 'title': 'Publication', 'creationDate': str(datetime.today().strftime("D:%Y%m%d%H%M%S%z")), 'modDate': str(datetime.today().strftime("D:%Y%m%d%H%M%S%z")), 'subject': 'Date de publication'})
annot.set_flags(fitz.PDF_ANNOT_IS_LOCKED|fitz.PDF_ANNOT_IS_READ_ONLY|fitz.PDF_ANNOT_IS_LOCKED_CONTENTS)
annot.update()
annot.set_rotation(1)
pdf.save(pdf.name, incremental=True, encryption=fitz.PDF_ENCRYPT_KEEP, permissions=0)

The annotation exists (visible in the comment section of a PDF reader), but doesn't display the text.
If I resize the annotation, I get the exact same behaviour as described above.

My snippet did work with previous versions of the libraries, I haven't changed anything in the code, I only upgraded python and my libraries and this behaviour occurred.

Thanks in advance for your help !
Antoine

[pablodm00]

hello! i tried going back to an earlier version of pymupdf and that seemed to fix the issue!

its currently working fine using:
python 3.11
pymupdf 1.24.10

[AntoineCarette]

Thanks Pablo! This works fine!