Database Annotations
Metadata → Bookmarks + Annotations → Annotations → Add Raw Variables
This process adds a raw variable annotations for every field for each form page in your CRF, matched against a list of form fields (and IDs) in your worksheet.
The Metadata tool can quickly add annotations to any pdf based Case Report Form (CRF) by utilising the database configuration report and pairing ID names with raw dataset variable names in seconds.
A Case Report Form (CRF) in PDF format.
A List of database ID names and corresponding raw dataset variable names.
Open Microsoft Excel.
Navigate to the Metadata ribbon.
Locate the Bookmarks + Annotations section of the ribbon.
Click the Add Database Annotations button in the Annotations section.
A file dialogue window will appear.
Select the applicable Case Report Form and click Open.
Confirm the annotated file name.
Next a range selection prompt will appear asking for the database ID values.
Simply select the first cell of the column which contains the ID names for the database field for the case report form pages.
For example, once the user selects the cell B2, the cell address would appear in the selection window. Note, the inclusion of "$" does not impact the selection.
IMPORTANT: The cell selection should only use one column.
Click OK to continue.
A further cell selection prompt will appear, this time asking for the Output IDs, repeat the steps above selecting the appropriate cell.
Once both selection windows have been populated and the user clicked OK, the process will continue.
After a short amount of time, a completion prompt will appear indicating the process has finished.
A newly annotated case report from file, using the suffix "_annotated", will be output to the same directory as the one selected at the beginning of the process.
Opening the newly created annotated CRF will show that the database variables annotated on the original CRF.
These annotations are embedded on the PDF and cannot be moved.
Note, this process does NOT require any Adobe Pro licences.