Make Annotations in LaTeX for documents: soul package, changes package, easyReview package, and one user-defined method
soul package: highlight the text
Highlighting text in LaTeX can be realized by soul package 1. And, bear in mind that do import color package, otherwise the color cannot display normally. In addition, we could use \sethlcolor defined in soul package to change highlight color, but this setting will influence the whole following context unless we reset color setting using \sethlcolor again. For example:
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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{color} % N.B.: necessary
\usepackage{soul}
\sethlcolor{red}
\begin{document}
We test \hl{red hightlight} here.
\sethlcolor{green}
We test \hl{green highlight} here.
We test \hl{highlight} here.
\end{document}
changes package: record modifications and make comments
If we want to record what have changed in the documentation, changes package is a good choice 1, and by which we could make some necessary comments for it, like:
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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{changes}
\definechangesauthor[name={coauthor1},color=orange]{Ma}
\definechangesauthor[name={coauthor2},color=red]{Tommy}
\begin{document}
This is \added[id=Ma,comment={This is added by Ma.}]{added} text.
This is \added[comment={This is added by Tommy.}]{added} text.
This is \deleted[id=Tommy,comment={This is deleted by Tommy.}]{deleted} text.
This is a \replaced{replacement}{replace}.
\listofchanges
\end{document}
Note: In hxy’s blog 1, the remark is added by keyword remark, like This is \added[id=Ma,remark={This is added by Ma.}]{added} text. However, an error occurs, “Package xkeyval Error: ‘remark’ undefined in families ‘Changes@added’. …id=Ma,remark={This is added by Ma.}]{added}” as actually there exists no remark defined in changes package (at least for the changes package installed in my PC) 2. The keyword comment should be used instead.
easyReview package: help to mark in the review and editorial process
Basic commands
In LaTeX editor TeXstudio, there are five quick command buttons in the tool bar:
They correspond to commands \alter, \comment, \add, \remove, and \replace, respectively. To use these commands, we should import easyReview package3 in the preamble.
easyReview package4 mainly provides six commands to help to review (or perform editorial process), including five aforementioned commands and \highlight, which is literally to highlight text. Their effects are as follows:
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\documentclass[a5paper]{article}
%\usepackage{setspace}
%\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.2}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\pagecolor{AntiqueWhite1}
\usepackage{easyReview}
\setlength{\parskip}{10pt}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\verb*|\alert{text}| A text without the alert command. \alert{A text with the alert command.}
\verb*|\comment{text}{comment}| \comment{This text will receive a comment.}{\textit{This is the comment I have.}}
\verb*|\add{text}| This text was already in the text. \add{This text is been added now.}
\verb*|\highlight{text}| A text without the highlight command. \highlight{A text with the highlight command.}
\verb*|\remove{text}| This text is not to be removed. \remove{This text is to be removed.}
\verb*|\replace{text}{replacement}| \replace{This part of the text needs to be replaced.}{for this newer part of the text}.
\end{document}
\setreviewsoff and \setreviewson
easyReview package also provides a command named \setreviewsoff to not display reviews (if not declared, the default case amounts to conducting command \setreviewon). Take adding \setreviewsoff into the preamble:
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% ...
\usepackage{easyReview}
\setreviewsoff
% ...
\begin{document}
% ...
\end{document}
However, I think this function is not that useful and may make the text more confused.
Change annotation colors
As described in esayReview package documentation4, users can change all colors but the highlight color, by these assignments that has literally meanings:
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\renewcommand{\alertColor}{\textcolor{%new alert color%}}
\renewcommand{\removeColor}{\textcolor{%new remove color%}}
\renewcommand{\addColor}{\textcolor{%new add color%}}
For example:
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\documentclass[a5paper]{article}
%\usepackage{setspace}
%\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.2}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\pagecolor{AntiqueWhite1}
\usepackage{easyReview}
\renewcommand{\alertColor}{\textcolor{Magenta4}}
\renewcommand{\removeColor}{\textcolor{LightBlue4}}
\renewcommand{\addColor}{\textcolor{Green4}}
\setlength{\parskip}{10pt}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\verb*|\alert{text}| A text without the alert command. \alert{A text with the alert command.}
\verb*|\comment{text}{comment}| \comment{This text will receive a comment.}{\textit{This is the comment I have.}}
\verb*|\add{text}| This text was already in the text. \add{This text is been added now.}
\verb*|\highlight{text}| A text without the highlight command. \highlight{A text with the highlight command.}
\verb*|\remove{text}| This text is not to be removed. \remove{This text is to be removed.}
\verb*|\replace{text}{replacement}| \replace{This part of the text needs to be replaced.}{for this newer part of the text}.
\end{document}
As can be seen, the setting for “remove” color seem not functional, and always same as “alert” color. Besides, there is no a specific command to modify the background color and text color of “comment” block.
Conflict with \lipsum command
At the beginning, I want to use \lipsum command of lipsum package5 to test those commands in easyReview package. However, for commands \comment, \highlight, \remove, and \replace, taking \lipsum commands as input parameter would incur errors. Finally, I had to use explicit text to make it work, like:
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\documentclass[a5paper]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\setlength{\parskip}{7pt}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\pagecolor{AntiqueWhite1}
\usepackage{easyReview}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\verb*|\alert{text}| \alert{\lipsum[1][1-4]}
\verb*|\comment{text}{comment}| \comment{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce neque leo, dignissim ut pellentesque at, eleifend eget arcu.}{\lipsum[1][1-4]}
\verb*|\add{text}| \add{\lipsum[1][1-4]}
\verb*|\highlight{text}| \highlight{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce neque leo, dignissim ut pellentesque at, eleifend eget arcu. Fusce lacinia nulla id turpis iaculis, et venenatis purus volutpat. Pellentesque elementum massa vel pulvinar elementum.}
\verb*|\remove{text}| \remove{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce neque leo, dignissim ut pellentesque at, eleifend eget arcu. Fusce lacinia nulla id turpis iaculis, et venenatis purus volutpat. Pellentesque elementum massa vel pulvinar elementum.}
\verb*|\replace{text}{replacement}| \replace{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce neque leo, dignissim ut pellentesque at, eleifend eget arcu. Fusce lacinia nulla id turpis iaculis, et venenatis purus volutpat. Pellentesque elementum massa vel pulvinar elementum.}{\lipsum[1][1-4]}
\end{document}
Before, I always wrongly view \lipsum as a command to merely generate a plain dummy text and use it to test many commands, but actually, according to my previous experiences, error usually occurs when \lipsum is taken as input parameter for many commands. At this moment, I realize that, for \lipsum, generating text is only a means, but not ends: its ends is to test document layout. For this reason, using \lipsum to test other commands is not an appropriate approach.
A user-defined method to create inline annotations
Apart from using functions provided by those LaTeX packages, Nebil 6 provided an interesting way to make inline annotations within the context, by a user-defined approach using \newcommand keyword:
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% This example is from github repository by Nebil: https://gist.github.com/nebil/4e114e433c193297c0f3802bc9c33ef4
% This source code is licensed under a Creative Commons CC0 license.
% More info at <https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>.
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}
% Describe the style of both the box and the text.
\newcommand{\remark}[3]{
{\colorbox{#2}{\sffamily\scriptsize\bfseries\textcolor{white}{#1}}}
{\sffamily\small\itshape\textcolor{#2}{#3}}
}
% Define a new command--using the previously defined one--for each author.
\newcommand{\alice}[1]{\remark{Alice}{blue}{#1}}
\newcommand{\bob}[1]{\remark{Bob}{red}{#1}}
% A simple example
As a minimal working example, we add a paragraph with some plain-old vanilla text.
\alice{This is a quite remarkable paragraph, I must say!}
\bob{Thank you for that insightful inline remark, Alice.}
\end{document}
The generated PDF is showed as follow:
References