text.ur is a self-hosted platform for real-time collaborative PDF annotation, created for the Institute of German Studies at the University of Regensburg on behalf of Tatjana Kühnast.
Users create groups, upload PDF documents, and invite collaborators via share links or email. Group members can then highlight text passages, write threaded comments in Markdown, and tag or filter annotations - with live cursors, presence tracking, and instant updates across all connected clients. The application is designed for on-premises deployment and runs entirely on your own infrastructure.
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Create a group, upload documents, and invite collaborators via email or share link. Share links require registration by default but can optionally allow anonymous access through temporary, device-bound guest accounts. Guests can later upgrade to persistent accounts, keeping all groups, comments, and data. |
Admins can add a per-document description for context and instructions, and define custom, color-coded tags describing the kinds of annotations expected. Tags are assigned to comments for categorization and used as filter criteria. |
Highlight text in a PDF to create an annotation anchored to that location. Comments support Markdown and threaded replies. Nearby annotations are intelligently grouped to reduce clutter on busy pages. |
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Comments, replies, tags, online status, and live cursors sync instantly across all clients with no manual refresh. |
Pin comments to keep them at the top of the sidebar regardless of scroll position or active filters. Pins are local per user - everyone organizes their own view. |
Show or hide comments by tag, author, or any combination. Filters stack to progressively narrow results. Like pins, filters are local per user. |
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Comment drafts, pins, and filters persist locally across sessions and reconnects. Lose connection mid-edit? Your text is still there when you come back. |
Set individual comments to public, restricted (admins only), or private (author only). Admins can also put entire documents into restricted mode where users only see their own comments - ideal for instructor review. |
Fine-grained permissions - role-based access control with configurable defaults per group Self-hosted - Docker Compose behind a reverse proxy on your own infrastructure Multi-language - English and German out of the box |
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | SvelteKit, Svelte 5, TailwindCSS 4, PDFSlick |
| Backend | FastAPI, SQLModel, Pydantic, Alembic |
| Database | PostgreSQL 16 |
| Storage | MinIO (S3-compatible) |
| Cache & Pub/Sub | Redis 8 |
| Deployment | Docker Compose, Gunicorn + Uvicorn |
A live demo version of the stable main branch is available at https://textur.realdegrees.dev.
Caution
This demo version is not guaranteed to be up at all times and may be reset without notice. For a stable, private instance, follow the Deployment Guide to set up your own server or contact the maintainers for assistance.
Prerequisites: Docker, Python 3.12+, Node.js 20+, pnpm 10
git clone https://github.com/realdegrees/text.ur.git
cd text.ur
cp .env.template .envEdit .env as needed. The template defaults work for local development. For a full description of all variables see the Environment Variables reference.
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -dThis starts PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO, and MailHog.
cd backend
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd database && alembic upgrade head && cd ..
uvicorn app.main:app --reload --port 8000API docs are available at http://localhost:8000/api/docs.
cd frontend
pnpm install
pnpm devThe app is available at http://localhost:5173. Captured emails can be viewed at http://localhost:6026 (MailHog).
Tip
The repository includes VS Code launch configurations for debugging both the backend (debugpy) and frontend (Node + Chrome DevTools). See the Deployment Guide for details.
For production deployment, see the Deployment Guide.
| Document | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| 🏗️ | Architecture | System design, auth flow, WebSocket protocol, access control, type sync pipeline |
| 🚢 | Deployment | Dev setup, production deployment, reverse proxy, environment variables |
| ⚙️ | CI/CD Pipeline | Pipeline stages, path filtering, Docker image tagging, local CI checks |
| 🤝 | Contributing | Development workflow, code style, testing, pull requests |
| 🐍 | Backend | Project structure, patterns, models, dependencies, testing |
| 🟠 | Frontend | Project structure, Svelte 5 runes, API client, generated files, i18n |
| 🗄️ | Database | Migrations, initialization, schema |
Contributions are welcome. See the Contributing Guide for development setup, code style conventions, and how to submit changes.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.