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Using AMC with annotated pdfs

Added by Matthew Leingang almost 10 years ago

I just installed AMC and I am very excited to use it for all our grading projects. I ran into a snag today with a workflow involving manual scoring of scanned quizzes.

I created a quiz with four open questions and a code block. Prior to scoring I scanned all the exams as PDFs into my Google Drive. Then I opened the PDFs in my tablet with an app called PDFExpert. It allows me to make or stamp marks on the PDF neatly and reversibly, instead of scribbling with a pen. I used the app's pen tool to fill in the box for the score.

Then I fed the annotated PDFs into AMC in the data capture tab. Unfortunately, it stripped away/ignored/failed to notice all my annotations, resulting in unscored quizzes.

I thought that maybe it was because the annotations are objects on top of the scanned image. But even when I flattened the PDF by converting to PostScript and back to PDF, AMC did not recognize the marks I added.

I'm wondering if there's another way to flatten the PDF so AMC sees the annotations as no different from pencil marks, or if others have run into this issue before.


Replies (3)

RE: Using AMC with annotated pdfs - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe almost 10 years ago

But even when I flattened the PDF by converting to PostScript and back to PDF

PostScript is not flattened, just converted. Try converting them to PNG, or use Edit/Preferences/Scan/Scans conversion/Force conversion on (ticked).

RE: Using AMC with annotated pdfs - Added by S. McKay almost 10 years ago

Matthew,
I use AMC to grade on my ipad, and have run into this problem. There is a way to set options in AMC to do this correctly, but I don't remember what it is. The only way I have found to truly and reliably flatten my annotated pdfs is to convert them to jpg (or png). I wrote a little script in python that I use to do this, but of course you can do it by hand also. The fastest way (that I have found) to flatten the pdfs is with ghostscript. I will attach my script to this post.

Note that once the pdfs have been converted to jpgs, you can load them into AMC directly - you do not need to convert back to pdf first.

ConvertToJpg.py (1.1 kB)

RE: Using AMC with annotated pdfs - Added by Matthew Leingang almost 10 years ago

Thanks for the replies! Alexis' solution didn't work for me, but maybe I applied it wrong. I will try again next time. McKay's script worked perfectly.

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