commenting.sty

Version 2.2 · Collaborative annotation tools for LaTeX manuscripts

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Features

• Text tracking — Mark additions and deletions with author colors and signatures
• Inline comments — Highlighted notes directly in the text flow
• Footnote comments — Alphabetic markers with clickable bidirectional links
• Multi-line environments — Extended comment blocks and footnotes
• Colored paragraphs — Highlight entire sections with margin signatures
• Draft/final toggle — All markup vanishes cleanly in final mode
• Colorblind-safe palette — 10 CVD-friendly colors for accessibility
• Sepia background — Optional warm background for comfortable editing
• TODO lists — Checkbox environment with progress markers

Quick Start

\usepackage[draft]{commenting}
\registerauthor{alice}[Alice][cbBlue]
\registerauthor{bob}[Bob][cbOrange]

The \bobdel{old}\bob{new} method is \alice{significantly} faster.
\alicei{Verify this claim.} \bobf{Add citation here.}

Installation

Copy commenting.sty to your project directory or TeX path, then:

\usepackage[draft]{commenting}          % Show all annotations
\usepackage[draft,bg=sepia]{commenting} % With sepia background
\usepackage[final]{commenting}          % Hide all annotations

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Commands Reference

Author Registration

\registerauthor{id}[Display Name][color]

Creates a command suite for each author:

Command	Purpose	Final Mode
\alice{text}	Added text	Text remains
\alicedel{text}	Deleted text	Removed
\alicei{note}	Inline comment	Hidden
\alicef{note}	Footnote comment	Hidden
aliceenv	Colored block	Plain text
aliceienv	Multi-line inline	Hidden
alicefenv	Multi-line footnote	Hidden

TODO Lists

\begin{todolist}
  \item Pending task
  \item[\doing] In progress
  \item[\done] Completed
\end{todolist}

A todo author is pre-registered: \todoi{Fix this.}

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Color Palette

Ten colorblind-safe colors for accessibility:

Color	Name	Color	Name
🔵	cbBlue	🟢	cbGreen
🟠	cbOrange	🟡	cbYellow
🔴	cbRed	🩷	cbPink
🟣	cbPurple	🟤	cbBrown
🩵	cbTeal	⚫	cbGray

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Package Options

Option	Effect
draft	Show all markup (default if document class is draft)
final	Hide all markup (default if document class is final)
bg=sepia	Apply sepia page background in draft mode

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Documentation

• example.tex — Quick one-page demo
• documentation.tex — Complete feature walkthrough

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Requirements

Standard TeX Live / MiKTeX packages: xcolor, soul, hyperref, ulem, xparse, mdframed, manyfoot, marginnote, environ

Compatible with pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX, and LuaLaTeX.

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Version History

Version	Date	Changes
2.2	2025-11-26	Sepia background, soul highlighting, documentation overhaul
2.1	2025-08-06	Documentation improvements
2.0	2025-01-21	Robust commands, xparse integration

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License

MIT License — see LICENSE

Citation

@misc{commenting2025,
  author = {Lee, Jae Hee},
  title  = {commenting.sty: Collaborative annotation tools for LaTeX},
  year   = {2025},
  url    = {https://github.com/dschaehi/commenting.sty}
}