Copy URL in existing PDF into clipboard SOLVED

[4mc]

I must be missing something obvious. I use Chrome to open a URL, the URL downloads a PDF that is opened in PDF-XCHANGE, the pdf has a url/link to another pdf, I want to copy that URL into the clipboard to past into an email.

Hover over the url/link shows the hand/pointer icon with a small globe and a text box with the target/URL.

can't see how to copy it. Tried selecting the entire URL/Link, right click, Copy copies the text, copy as rich text, copies the text as rich text. Can't see how to access to actual URL.

HELP!

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[4mc]

my work around is to drag/drop the PDF on another Chrome window and then use Chrome to copy the URL/Link address. What am I missing?

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[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi 4mc,

you could use a combination of the "Links Pane" and "Properties Pane" to select the desired link and copy the URL from it's properties:

CopyWebLink.gif

But that is pretty messy, and I agree that it would be nice to have this functionality like most web browsers do. To that end I brought this up with the development team leader and he agrees this is a reasonable request, so have raised a formal Feature Request for it. While intended for internal use only, should you refer to RT#5616: Feature Request :: Editor :: Copy URL in existing PDF into clipboard then any support staff member can get you a status update.
Do be aware that there are a number of Link Object types of links, not just URLs for web resources, as I understand it this feature is only going to address web link URLs, http:// and https://.

[margian]

Hello, there. What is the status of this implementation?
This should really be an easy fix and address a functionality that has been around for several years.
Especially in cases where you don't want to directly open a web link in your default browser.

[rakunavi]

Hello all,

It seems to me that the issue discussed in this topic can be solved by activating the Hand Tool and selecting "Copy Link Location" from the context menu of the link.

However, I must be very mistaken somewhere, as the "Copy Link Location" command was already available from the build when RT#5616 was issued. I am not sure what the problem is, so I would appreciate it if anyone could elaborate.

• Animation.gif

Best regards,
rakunavi

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello rakunavi,

Thanks for the follow up! Indeed a right click over the link while the hand tool is active is all that's needed.

The topic was originally from 2021.
@margian's first post in our forums is in a several years old topic, so I will be monitoring that activity, as in some such cases where a post is made out of the blue in a years old topic we've seen those are actually bots. I am not saying that margian is - it's just a bit too similar to cases I've observed in the past.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[rakunavi]

Hello Stefan, thank you for your reply.

In my experience so far, getting a ticket issued is in itself the first difficulty for me. However, it seemed surprising to me that a ticket was issued, since "Copy Link Location" command already existed around the time of the April 22, 2019 release of build 331. At any rate, I am relieved that my understanding seems to be correct.

Incidentally, one of the strange posting patterns I see on this forum is that someone (bots?) makes a normal post at first, and then after about a month or so, they replace it with something drastically different. Once one gets used to the well-managed state of the forums here, it is troubling to see how poor the support services for other software seem to be everywhere else. I am always impressed by the incredible support services.

Best regards,
rakunavi

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello rakunavi,

I believe that the "Copy URL" in the context menu is exactly the result of getting ticket 5616 resolved. It was resolved in sept 2022, so still quite a while back.

As for those who update their posts back - as soon as we notice such behaviour the whole account gets banned. So we do try to stay on top of it. If you do notice any such post we have missed - let us know and we will sort them out!

Thanks for the kind words for the support we provide! We do try our best to offer as good support as possible!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[margian]

I'm not a bot
In "Select Text" mode the option to copy the URL is not there - and most of the time this is my default mode.
There was no follow-up to this thread with the solution, nor it could be found anywhere else in the forum.
No other reference to such issue was found elsewhere even with a long and thorough search of this website and google.
Threatening to ban a user because you failed to provide proper support and visibility to a legitimate issue, concern, and relevant solution is not what we pay for when we renew your expensive maintenance subscription.
What is wrong with you, guys?

[rakunavi]

Hello margian, thank you for your reply.

I finally understand what you and other readers of this topic are looking for. As you said, the "Select Text Tool" does not copy URL, but you could try selecting the "Hand Tool" and then enabling the "Select Text/Images" option from the Format tab. Possibly RT#5616 was marked as Resolved with the addition of the "Select Text/Images" option to the Hand tool.

Not your wish itself, of course, but possibly something close to it could be achieved.

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Best regards,
rakunavi

[margian]

Hello, there, and thanks for your feedback.
I don't do that simply because constantly switching modes is impractical and inconvenient.
The right click "Context Menu" is called "Context Menu" for a reason: because it's supposed to provide functions tightly related to the area, word, phrase, link it's currently hovering and refers to.
If you are on a hyperlink, with your mouse, and your pointer turns into a finger with a globe, you intuitively expect to have context menu items related, among other things, to the hyperlink (like in a browser, for example, together with other menu items)

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And in "Select Text" mode this is not happening.

Hand Tool Mode

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Select Text Mode

image(1).png

And more generally speaking, the "Hand Mode" was by itself obsoleted many years ago by the ability to scroll up/down with your MouseWheel and right/left by Shift+MouseWheel

It currently only makes partial sense if associated with Accessibility collaterals...

This is UI/UX 101, for that matters...

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello,

Thank you both for the explanations, I see the same here with the select text tool, and I have raised the topic with the Dev team. At the moment I am unsure if this omission was intentional (perhaps there is some conflict with the select text tool we wanted to avoid) or if it was simply an oversight. I can promise you both that they will take another look at this in the coming weeks.

@margain, also wanted to apologize if Stefan's post read to sound like a threat of any sort. He is not lying that bots have been a rampant issue, and they are only becoming harder to identify, but this was not meant to be targeting you. It was simply a generic observation. Normally we would not vocalize it publicly, but the same policy is applied to all forum accounts, and Stefan was theorizing a reply to Rakunavi's uncertainty about your question. Any account is can be susceptible to password leaks from others after all.

Beyond that I should mention for anyone reviewing this thread that our Support is offered free of charge to any and all users of our software, regardless of licensee status. The only thing paying for maintenance gives you is access to new releases of our software, which of course include all the new features and bugfixes over time, but we do not put a paywall in front of support.

The closest would be when an issue is known to have been fixed in a newer release than what you are running, or something cannot be reproduced in the current build. In those specific cases we do ask users with an expired key or no license, to updated verify if the issue is already resolved when they update the software. This is something that can be done without any purchase, due to our non-time-limited evaluation mode.
Anyone can update at any time, to check if the new version fixes a bug in their older version, and use that information to decide If they wish to purchase a renewal after confirming it is resolved. If after that evaluation, the purchase is not worthwhile to them, they can roll back either to the latest build covered by their license, or to an earlier build if one of them did not have that issue. Our support team is always happy to help with either scenario.

Our maintenance costs are also quite affordable when compared to our competitors. At the time of this post, Maintenance renewals start around 20-30% of the current product purchase price, per year, at the time of renewal (depending on whether you choose the 1 or 2 year renewal option). So long as you renew within 30 days of maintenance expiry you can keep these costs extremely low. If you wait more than 30 days, this price increases very slowly over time (taking about 2 years before it caps at about 90% of the new purchase price).

Kind regards,

[margian]

Thank you for the response and for raising the issue with the development team. However, while your explanation clarifies certain aspects of the support model, it does not fully address the core concerns regarding visibility, communication, and responsiveness to bugs.

1. Lack of Transparency in Issue Tracking and Resolution
- You mention that the issue has been raised with the development team, but there is no clear commitment to tracking and resolving it.
- Without a public bug tracker or a formalized process for reporting and following up on issues, users are left in the dark about whether their concerns are being actively addressed or de-prioritized.
- Instead of vague assurances like "they will take another look at this in the coming weeks," a structured feedback loop with estimated timelines, status updates, and prioritization criteria would be far more effective.

Suggestion:
Implement a publicly visible bug-tracking system or at least a user-facing roadmap where reported issues are acknowledged, categorized, and updated regularly.

2. Ambiguity in Bug-Fixing Policy Tied to Licensing
- Your statement that support is offered "free of charge to any and all users" is misleading when fixes are locked behind version updates tied to a paid maintenance plan.
- The expectation that users must update to verify if a bug is fixed shifts the burden onto them rather than providing direct support
- If a known bug has been resolved in a newer version, but a user is outside the maintenance window, they effectively must pay for the fix. This contradicts the claim that support is universally available.

Suggestion:
If a bug is confirmed in an older version and fixed in a new one, offer limited-time access to the fixed version for verification purposes, ensuring fairness for users who encountered the issue before their maintenance expired.

3. Lack of Proactive Engagement with Users on Product Issues
- The response emphasizes that support is available, but the communication process relies heavily on users initiating inquiries and troubleshooting on their own.
- There is no mention of proactive outreach, such as sending updates to affected users when an issue they reported has been addressed.
- The burden should not be on users to "evaluate" whether purchasing a maintenance renewal is worthwhile after encountering a bug.

Suggestion:
Adopt a proactive notification system where users who reported an issue receive a direct update when it is addressed, rather than leaving them to manually check new releases.

4. The Defense of Pricing Does Not Address the Core Complaint
- While the breakdown of maintenance costs may be relevant to potential buyers, it does not justify the lack of transparency in issue resolution.
- Users are primarily concerned with how their reported issues are handled, not just whether pricing is competitive compared to competitors.
- A lower maintenance cost does not negate the frustration caused by unclear communication, lack of timely feedback, and paywalled fixes.

Suggestion:
Rather than focusing on defending pricing, emphasize improvements in bug reporting transparency, tracking, and communication to build trust with users.

Conclusion
While it is appreciated that the issue has been escalated internally, the response does not directly address the underlying concerns about visibility and feedback in the bug resolution process. Implementing a more transparent, structured, and user-focused approach to handling bugs will strengthen trust and engagement within the user community.

NOT my 2 cents... but still worth some consideration.

Thank You and Best Regards.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, margian

I see... Regarding items #1 and #3, our teams are considerably smaller than most people seem to realize. Unlike most of our competitors, who have hundreds of developers on hand, and countless support team members, we have a very small group here. It is simply not realistic to offer this level of interactivity at our scale (we have tried to implement such systems and found them unwieldy in the best of cases).

For #2, I think you have misunderstood the support approach here because of my example. We try to suggest a method that does not rely on you updating whenever possible. Including passable workarounds, or if it is a bug, a rollback to a previous build which did not have the issue, and your license can still cover. There are many solutions, however that example was the closest to an exception to that rule I can think of.
As per your suggestion, all features are accessible in evaluation mode, which does mean it is only on very rare occasions we would need to say "an update is the only answer". In the vast majority of cases, this is caused by a newly introduced bug to much older builds, after a windows feature or other third party software update, such as the recent OCR languages issue which hit our V9 installations. There is no need for any time limited licenses because of this, and our software simply does not have the functionality to support short term licenses at this time.

Finally on #4, It was not attempting to address the core complaint, it was a clarification of our pricing structure for any others who review this topic, after your comment about our product maintenance being expensive.

Kind regards,

[rakunavi]

Hello margian,

Suggestion:
If a bug is confirmed in an older version and fixed in a new one, offer limited-time access to the fixed version for verification purposes, ensuring fairness for users who encountered the issue before their maintenance expired.

As you may already know, the portable version can be used for various purposes without affecting the existing installed version of PDF-XChange Editor in any way. Aside from the evaluation of the latest builds as you have pointed out, there are other uses as mentioned in this post, such as

• View full screen on multiple displays simultaneously (more details on this topic).
• Continue working in a separate window even during high-load processes such as heavy OCR processing (more details on this topic).
• Temporarily open a file in build 331 when you want to do a paste operation like the old build (more details on this topic).

No matter how many portable versions you run at the same time on the same PC, you can use the license of the existing installed version without consuming a new license.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
rakunavi

[margian]

Thanks all for the contribution...
So, in the end, this open question remains:

How/when will I know if the reported issue will be/has been addressed?

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello margian,

As soon as there are any updates in our systems (e.g. our devs notify us that something is resolved) - we would update the forum topic, or e-mail you to let you know. This update will usually include information as to which build of our products will include that fix, and sometimes an estimated release date for it, so we would be providing you with as much info as is available to us at the time of that update!

[Edit]: This issue has been confirmed as fixed for the next release. Keep an eye out for Version 10.6 which will contain this change.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[margian]

...
[Edit]: This issue has been confirmed as fixed for the next release. Keep an eye out for Version 10.6 which will contain this change.
...

2-months-later-300x169.jpg

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, margian

We typically go about 2-4 months between "feature" build releases, which 10.6 is. 2 months is not an unreasonable amount of time, but I can confirm that we are currently on track for this release to be out in the next week or two. Provided no major issues arise through our internal testing, it should be available very soon.

Kind regards,

[margian]

I see this made it to the Build 10.6.0.396. Thanks. Issue appears addressed so far.

[mCHSNUg5Pz8cPap]

Conclusion
While it is appreciated that the issue has been escalated internally, the response does not directly address the underlying concerns about visibility and feedback in the bug resolution process. Implementing a more transparent, structured, and user-focused approach to handling bugs will strengthen trust and engagement within the user community.

NOT my 2 cents... but still worth some consideration.

Thank You and Best Regards.

PDF-XChange does a FANTASTIC job at support compared to other consumer software I've used/purchased. The normal experience is for bug reports, feature requests, and the like to be met with complete and total indifference. With PDF-XChange, they will fix bugs (all bugs that are reported as far as I can tell), which is unheard of in this day and age. In fact, a few years back, I encountered a super difficult to reproduce but highly annoying bug that eventually required one of the developers to remote into my machine and see what was going on. They figured it out and fixed it (some complex interaction between PDF-XChange and other systems on my machine, but I have never had it happen since they fixed it).

As for feature requests, they at least acknowledge them and let you know if they have been adopted or rejected, which I appreciate. I requested something a few years back that was rejected but appeared in an update about a year later. So even rejected feature requests still have a chance of being implemented.

And, I can get all this for a very reasonable price (much less than Adobe, which is what I was using before). I wish all software companies were as good as PDF-XChange. This software has made my life so much easier.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, mCHSNUg5Pz8cPap

Thank you very much for the kind words, we do try our best with the limited resources we have available!

Kind regards,