UploadPDF

Assignment types ::: assignment_uploadpdf

Maintained by

Davo Smith

Annotate student's work within your browser and return it as a PDF

Latest release: 11 years

70 sites

20 downloads

13 fans

Current versions available: 2

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For Moodle 2.3 (and above) this plugin has been replaced by the following pair of plugins:

https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignsubmission_pdf

https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignfeedback_pdf

Newly updated to work with Moodle 2.0. Warning: there is currently no clean upgrade from Moodle 1.9 => Moodle 2.0 for this plugin, any assignments created under Moodle 1.9 will lose all coversheets and submitted files on upgrade (I will try to find a fix for this). All other features should work fully with Moodle 2.0.

Students submit their work as a PDF (which can be generated from any application by using a PDF printer, such as the free PDFCreator). An optional coversheet is automatically attached (filled in with details gathered from the student as they submit the work).

The pages of the assignment are then presented, as images, in the teacher's browser window, allowing them to add comments and line annotations to each page. Comments can be edited, moved and resized as much as you like. You can also choose from a range of tasteful background and line colours (or no background at all).

Once the teacher is satisfied with their comments and annotations, their response is saved as a PDF and automatically returned to the student (along with the usual comment, grade and outcomes which are found in all assignments).

Important: please make sure you read the instructions (in README.txt) carefully - you will need to install a copy of GhostScript to make this plugin work and (if you are using a Windows-based server) edit one file in this plugin to tell it where to find GhostScript.
Installation:

Linux server:

Install ghostscript from your distribution repository
Download the UploadPDF plugin from the link below and unzip to a suitable folder
Upload the files to your server and place them in the folder [moodleroot]/mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf (make sure the files go directly into this folder and you do NOT end up with a folder 'type/uploadpdf/uploadpdf')
Log into your Moodle site as administrator and click on 'Notifications'

Windows server:

Download the ghostscript installer fromhttp://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Install this on the server, but make sure the path does not include a space (e.g. install to 'c:\gs' NOT to 'c:\Program Files\gs') - you can also install on a local computer and then upload the 'gswin32c.exe' and 'gsdll32.dll' file from the 'bin' folder to your server
(IIS only) Make sure that the permissions are set correctly on the ghostscript exe/dll to allow PHP to run them
Download the UploadPDF plugin from the link below and unzip to a suitable folder
Edit the file 'uploadpdf_config.php' to include the path to where you installed ghostscript (instructions are in this file)
Upload the files to your server and place them in the folder [moodleroot]/mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf (make sure the files go directly into this folder and you do NOT end up with a folder 'type/uploadpdf/uploadpdf')
Log into your Moodle site as administrator and click on 'Notifications'

Overview video:

Useful links

Website URL

Source control URL

Bug tracker

Screenshots

Contributors

Davo Smith (Lead maintainer)

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Comments

Adam Wright
Sun, 8 Jan 2012, 7:02 AM
This is an excellent module that is an essential part of the Moodle experience in Further Education. Myself and the college I work at have just installed this, and are rolling it out in the classroom from Mon 9th Jan 2012. We have set up templates for the BTEC National Diploma, and the module supports resubmission of work as well. Moodle should pay this guy, and make it a core part of Moodle! Well done.
Roland Sherwood
Wed, 25 Jan 2012, 6:26 PM
Fantastic module (as is anything from Mr. Smith)! Just one minor issue: while it runs fine under 2.2 using the stock themes, when used with the latest version of Aardvark (http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_aardvark) the drawing tools no longer function. It seems to be a javascript conflict, with the error console in IE relaying the following:

Webpage error details

Message: 'null' is null or not an object
Line: 1658
Char: 5
Code: 0
URI: http://mysite.com/mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf/scripts/annotate.js
Davo Smith
Sat, 28 Jan 2012, 4:57 AM
@Roland - please note that the issue you have raised should now be fixed (actually, I fixed the javascript library conflicts some months ago, but the plugin version hosted on Moodle.org was not as up-to-date as the GitHub version).
Roland Sherwood
Mon, 30 Jan 2012, 10:47 PM
Davo - many thanks for the swift feedback. Have just upgraded and it now works a treat with Aardvark. Great work!
Mary Cooch
Sat, 4 Feb 2012, 2:42 AM
Davo - my line manager has fallen in love with this We're looking to implement a common literacy marking policy and this has the features we need....except... he has asked me to ask you if there is any chance in an updated version sometime to add the ability to highlight text? I know you can underline or draw rectangles but our policy on paper marking involves highlighting spelling errors and we were wondering how hard that would be to do in the upload pdf?
Davo Smith
Sat, 4 Feb 2012, 11:18 PM
Mary - glad you're liking it. I've added a tracker issue for the highlighter pen here: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB-3376 I'm doing a fix fixes on the plugin today, so I may be able to add it soon (but I have got a lot of different projects on the go, so it may not get done soon).
Davo Smith
Sun, 5 Feb 2012, 1:01 AM
Mary - I've now added that feature (but see notes in the README.txt file, for the limitations).
Mary Cooch
Sun, 5 Feb 2012, 1:06 AM
wow Excellent will test out asap thanks
Bohumil Havel
Tue, 7 Feb 2012, 8:07 PM
After send to grade ive got
TCPDF ERROR: Unable to create output file: /var/moodledata22bohous/temp/uploadpdf//sub/submission.pdf
Davo Smith
Wed, 8 Feb 2012, 2:35 AM
@Bohumil - try the new version I've just submitted
michael reynolds
Thu, 15 Mar 2012, 4:15 AM
I have downloaded ghostscript, installed the module but what do you mean by 'Install ghostscript from your distribution repository'? Is this the path /mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf and do I just uncompact the file in this folder? I have to say this looks very good
Davo Smith
Thu, 15 Mar 2012, 3:46 PM
Michael, that depends on which version of Linux you are using - in Ubuntu you download software using apt or the Software Centre, on other distributions it will be different. Usually with Linux, unlike windows, applications are installed in a way that they can be launched just by typing their name, so you do not need to type in a full path to where the program is installed - leave the config file alone (unless it doesn't work). I assume you are using Linux, not Windows, as you mention the distribution repository, from the Linux section of the instructions, but you haven't mentioned which version you are using.