[palosanto]

I have a pdf book of songs where I have already annotations in MSP.
I want to separate now the songs into individual entries in the database.
If I make snippets I'm able to accomplish what I want including annotations.   However There are a lot of songs ...
Is there a faster method via CSV?  I don't thing I can include the existing annotations, right?   Unless I embed them in the pdf first and import it as a new pdf with the CSV?

I've never used either one of the tools ...

[Geoff Bacon]

I have an idea how to do this but I'm going to leave it to others who may have a better approach that simplifies the process

Just to clarify, it sounds as though you have

• a single pdf file containing multiple songs
  
• these songs have annotations that you want to keep.
  
• a single entry in MSP for the pdf file
  
• the file may or may not contain an internal indexing mechansim to allow jumping to pages.
  

and that you are trying to

• Keep the songs in a single PDF but add multiple entries into MSP (one per song)
  
• maintain annotations
  

As you say, you really need a CSV to create the entries. If it is a fakebook then a CSV file may already exist on the forum; alternatively, there may be tools that can generate one from your pdf file (which I hope others can tell you about).

I believe annotations are typically stored in the database rather than in the pdf file. This means that you would need to export the "file with annotations" so that they are embedded in the pdf. You would then import this exported pdf with the associated CSV file.

The format of the CSV is quite pernickety so I advise you to experiment on a small version to see how it works before going for the full thing.
I recommend that before importing the file, you use MSP to make a backup of the database; this will give you something to roll back to should it not work as you expect!

Hopefully, someone else will provide further advice for you

Cheers
Geoff

[palosanto]

Thanks Mike. 
The method that you describe is what I ended up doing, embedding the annotations first on the pdf and importing it with the associated csv.
The annotations become editable by enabling the option in the annotation mode settings menu.
But It would be great to be able to import the annotations without having to enable the option and still access them.

[Zubersoft]

It was Geoff who responded to you, but he covered everything very well. If you want to use CSV while maintaining annotations, you do need to save all the annotations to the PDF first, so it sounds like you are doing that. That option exists for a good reason though - when it's enabled, it slows down both the loading and saving as the PDF has to be reopened in a writable state and I have to process all of the embedded annotations and create an internal copy of them so that they can be edited in the existing framework. So in general, I don't want that mode enabled at all times if it's not necessary.

Mike

[palosanto]

oh, sorry Geoff and thanks for the tips.
Yeah, regarding the setting to enable editing of embedded pdf annotations I already keep it usually disabled but I can always enable it momentarily if I need to edit any of the previous annotations now embedded.

[Geoff Bacon]

Mike

As you are obviously able to process embedded annotations in a pdf, how about a mechanism to move them from the pdf back into the database - that would minimise the processing effort each time the pdf is opened.

I doubt I would ever use it but others might and you should have the bulk of the code already.

I would place this as a very low priority suggestion (as I said, I don't embed anyway)

Keep up the good work and stay safe

Geoff