PS, pdfmark and annotation programming

Question

I posted this on the PDF forum with no success so far...
Using pdfmark in postscript, I have had no problem generating PDFs with metadata (Title, Author, ...) or annotations like simple sticky notes, links (within a document or to a URL), bookmarks, ...
I am looking for some help/information/code examples on the following:
1- Polygon (or Polyline) annotations
2- File attachment
3- AP dictionary, i.e. appearance dictionary
1- Polygon annotations:
My Circle or Square annotations work, but not the polygon. See code:
200 300 translate
1 setlinewidth
0 0 0 setrgbcolor
20 30 10 10 rectstroke
[ /Contents (Test for Polygon Annotation)
/Rect [20 30 10 10]
/Color [1 0 0]
/Title (Polygon)
/Vertices [25 30
20 35
25 40
30 35]
/Subtype /Polygon
/Border [0 0 .2]
/ANN pdfmark
The annotation is not using the user space. If you remove the vertices, and change the Subtype to /Square, then the annotation is properly positioned...
2- File attachment: The following code distills, but then I get "Expected object number" error message when trying to view the resulting PDF file:
/Contents (Contents)
/Rect [200
300
300
400]
/Color [1 0 0]
/Title (Ttitle File Attachment)
/Name /Paperclip
/F (test.pdf)
/Subtype /FileAttachment
/Border [0 0 .2]
/ANN pdfmark
Shouldn't the attachment, test.pdf, be ... attached?
3- AP, appearance dictionary:
Is there any place a code sample I could look at? I want to create text annotations, i.e. sticky notes, with some customization, somewhat similar to the note on Thomas Merz's Web publishing book at http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/primer.pdf
I am using Acrobat 8 Professional 8.1.2 and/or Distiller 8.1.2 on Windows.
Thanks! Those are 3 separate issues, but they are all annotation related.

Answer 1

Hi Sonny black,
As a developer myself I'm not keen on developing on a Mac Book (as a laptop it is great, but you need the most screen area you can get and a 27" iMac is only just enough when you get serious at it ).
With a £2,000 budget I would get a 27" iMac (virtually the same spec as the one I'm using now). Amazon UK do them for £1,316.80 (inc delivery) for a quad core i5:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-Quad-Core-Processor-graphics-Launched/dp/B004Z139Q C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319579053&sr=8-2
Then with the money you have left get yourself an iPad 2 - then you have a target to develop on and something handy to carry around to lectures (though you will need to spend another £60 for an Apple developer license each year).
Hope that helps!
Dave,