Your annotations are saved internally by Okular.
You can export the annotated document using File -> Export As -> Document Archive

google01103 wrote:It works fine for me, when I annotate a pdf for the first time I get this message:

Your annotations are saved internally by Okular.
You can export the annotated document using File -> Export As -> Document Archive

because the annotations are saved separate from the actual pdf in ~/.kde[4]/share/apps/okular/actual_doc_name.pdf.xml if you try to save the pdf then you will get that message because your annotations are linked to the original pdf not to the saved doc. You do not have to save the doc for the annotations to be saved. Also if an annotated pdf is opened by a different user then the annotations are not seen.

How can I annotate a document and send it to a friend/colleague/etc?

Since KDE 4.2, Okular has the "document archiving" feature. This is an Okular-specific format for carrying the document plus various metadata related to it (currently only annotations).
You can save a "document archive" from the open document by choosing "File -> Export As -> Document Archive".
To open an Okular document archive, just open it with Okular as it would be eg a PDF document.

google01103 wrote:from the Okular faq

How can I annotate a document and send it to a friend/colleague/etc?

Since KDE 4.2, Okular has the "document archiving" feature. This is an Okular-specific format for carrying the document plus various metadata related to it (currently only annotations).
You can save a "document archive" from the open document by choosing "File -> Export As -> Document Archive".
To open an Okular document archive, just open it with Okular as it would be eg a PDF document.

zsaja wrote:Again, this works, and for some time already. I am asking about the apparant brand new feature of embedding your annotations directly into the pdf files, which should be availabel with kde 4.9, and probably not yet in the okular documentation. Browsing bugzilla I saw that maybe one also needs a recent enough poppler (>=0.20), which maybe at least kubuntu didn't pack into their kde 4.9 packages. Is that the reason?

It's already available in 4.9 beta 1 (poppler 0.20 is required).

> Are there extra files in the same folder or are they embedded in the
> documents (at least for pdf)?
User annotations are still automatically saved in Okular's internal folders as usual (*).
But now, if you press File -> Save As (it's availabe with PDF files only **), annotations are embedded in the saved document too (ie you can see/edit them in other readers). It's now also possible to edit existing embedded annotations.
For other formats (and PDF itself), there's still the option to export annotatated documents in .okular format (File -> Export As -> Document Archive) and share them with other Okular users.

* = Actually, automatic internal storage is disabled in some cases, and you need to save to PDF every time you make a change. But there are warnings and a "Save or discard changes?" prompt in place for that.
** = Poppler, the library we use to deal with PDF files, doesn't support modifying encrypted PDF files yet. If you open such a file, the "Save As" menu entry is grayed out and you are warned that you can only export as .okular file.