Feature Request: Sticky Destinations

[PHK]

Now, the PDF-XCE user can define the Destination to a specific place on a page and the zoom level with some flexibility or use Named Destinations. However, if the user elects "Remove source pages after merging them", all destination links will be destroyed because the source page no longer exists. If Named Destinations had been employed, the titles of the Named Destinations survive but it no longer have destinations. That is as it should be; if there is no page, there can no longer be a destination for that Title.

What would be nice would be if the user were able to define an area of a source page in Named Destinations that SURVIVES a Merge Pages operation when source pages are removed and the Named Destinations would link to the specified locations from the source pages on the newly created sheet but not the specific number of the source page which of course no longer exists. This would make Named Destinations a much more useful tool. As it is now, there is no point in creating Named Destinations if source pages are to be merged into a new multi-page sheet any time in the future because those links will be invalidated by the Merge Pages operation if the "Remove..." box is ticked.

Thankfully, many other tools do survive Merge Pages, such as links and comments. If those functions can survive Merge Pages (and Split Pages for that matter), surely it would make sense for Named Destinations to survive a Merge Pages or Split Pages operation, too. Further, as Bookmarks' links do not now survive a Merge Pages operation with pages removed (their Titles do but not the links), Bookmarks to Defined Names would survive Merge Pages with this development.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, PHK

The trouble with this is that bookmarks and Named destinations are essentially integrated with the target page, if that page is moved to a new location in the document, all bookmarks and destinations attached to it are also updated in that moment, likewise, when the page is deleted, they are updated to understand that there is no page in that location. The reason that links survive this process is because they do not have that link of integration. Instead, if a link points to page 4, it will always point to page 4. If page 4 is moved to page 17 in the file, the link will not point to page 17, it will still point to page 4 (which now shows the content of the old "page 5" because the document was shuffled around.

I am afraid that bookmarks and name destination functionality is defined very clearly by the specification, so it is highly unlikely that we will be able to change this to match what you have described. I will nonetheless, pass this suggestion on to the Dev team so they can review the spec and see if there is any allowance for such a feature to be made.

Kind regards,

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, again

So a brief talk with the dev team confirmed that it is not possible to create bookmark or destination objects which are not directly tied to a page object as the Spec does not allow it, but there is a workaround.

The "replace pages" tool offers an option to replace content while keeping existing interactive features in place. What this does is identifies all objects that would be updated to say there is no longer a target, and re-writes the target as the newly inserted page.

image.png

This is not available to the merge pages function, due to the complexity of handling multiple pages of data, but if you merge the pages separately, and then use the replace pages tool to insert the merged page, that would get you a similar effect.

Kind regards,

[PHK]

...So a brief talk with the dev team confirmed that it is not possible to create bookmark or destination objects which are not directly tied to a page object as the Spec does not allow it

Hmmm, that's unfortunate because it basically invalidates my use of Bookmarks and Named Destinations where I am merging multple pages onto large single sheets and then ammending these sheets with incremental data. For instance, a large single sheet of bank statements to which I add new monthly statements as I receive them. On the other hand, these large sheets reduce my dependence on Bookmarks and Named Destinations for navigating around files which were necessary to find specific pages amongst a blizzard of thumbnails which I have grown to detest. Alternatively, I can make more use of Comments particularly Comments on Layers where I can manage their visibility.

but there is a workaround.

The "replace pages" tool offers an option to replace content while keeping existing interactive features in place. What this does is identifies all objects that would be updated to say there is no longer a target, and re-writes the target as the newly inserted page...This is not available to the merge pages function, due to the complexity of handling multiple pages of data, but if you merge the pages separately, and then use the replace pages tool to insert the merged page, that would get you a similar effect.

Sorry, I do not understand the steps of this workaround. Could you please elaborate?

[David.P]

Hello all,

I have also encountered the problem that some elements, or functions, did not survive the merging of pages. I believe in my case it was links pointing to individual to-be-merged pages that didn't work anymore after the merging.

However, I haven't done any page merging for a while, so maybe this has been improved in the meantime.

Anyway, I was about to comment on this:

The trouble with this is that bookmarks and Named destinations are essentially integrated with the target page, if that page is moved to a new location in the document, all bookmarks and destinations attached to it are also updated in that moment, likewise, when the page is deleted, they are updated to understand that there is no page in that location. The reason that links survive this process is because they do not have that link of integration. Instead, if a link points to page 4, it will always point to page 4. If page 4 is moved to page 17 in the file, the link will not point to page 17, it will still point to page 4 (which now shows the content of the old "page 5" because the document was shuffled around.

I do not believe that this is the case. Or rather, it would be extremely disadvantageous if links actually behaved that way.

In my experience (and I must have done this about a million times), link targets always remain connected to the respective target page, no matter where the target page is moved inside the PDF document. Again, were this not the case, it would be disastrous in my view.

Best regards
David

[PHK]

...
In my experience (and I must have done this about a million times), link targets always remain connected to the respective target page, no matter where the target page is moved inside the PDF document. Again, were this not the case, it would be disastrous in my view.
...

And Comments (Higlights, etc.) also "always remain connected to the respective target page," too.

But it seems Bookmarks and Named Destinations do not. That's the rub. They should.

[David.P]

But it seems Bookmarks and Named Destinations do not [remain connected to the respective target page]. That's the rub. They should.

Not sure what happens to bookmarks and named destinations attached to pages when merging pages.

However, when moving pages, bookmarks and named destinations remain connected to the destination page as well (luckily).

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello,

TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: ↑Yesterday, 10:50

but there is a workaround.

The "replace pages" tool offers an option to replace content while keeping existing interactive features in place. What this does is identifies all objects that would be updated to say there is no longer a target, and re-writes the target as the newly inserted page...This is not available to the merge pages function, due to the complexity of handling multiple pages of data, but if you merge the pages separately, and then use the replace pages tool to insert the merged page, that would get you a similar effect.

Sorry, I do not understand the steps of this workaround. Could you please elaborate?

Regarding this, as you would be merging the pages, it likely will not work for your needs, but for anyone else looking to do this. You would need to:
1. Open the "replace pages" dialog, on the Organize tab.
2. specify the page numbers you wish to be replaced (If if you are only replacing page 5, make the range, "5 to 5")
3. Select the file to draw pages from (you can select the same document that is currently open)
4. Specify the page range to use as the new replacement page (if you are only inserting one page, use the "custom" range and enter the specific page number)
5. Ensure that the "replace page contents keeping all existing interactive features" option is selected, then click OK.

I do not believe that this is the case. Or rather, it would be extremely disadvantageous if links actually behaved that way.

In my experience (and I must have done this about a million times), link targets always remain connected to the respective target page, no matter where the target page is moved inside the PDF document. Again, were this not the case, it would be disastrous in my view.

Many links use Bookmarks or named destinations as their targets, which are updated for the aforementioned reasons. In other cases, we have features which can dynamically detect links pointing directly at a page and update them, but this is not a common function across all PDF software, so It was worth mention. Admittedly, I incorrectly used the word "will" instead of "may" or "can" when saying that the link will not be updated to show the new page number, so my apologies for the confusion.

PHK wrote: ↑Today, 06:14
But it seems Bookmarks and Named Destinations do not [remain connected to the respective target page]. That's the rub. They should.

Not sure what happens to bookmarks and named destinations attached to pages when merging pages.

However, when moving pages, bookmarks and named destinations remain connected to the destination page as well (luckily).

Like David, I am a bit confused about your statement there PHK, the bookmarks and destination TARGETS will remain attached to the original TARGET page. The other items you mention, Highlights and sticky notes, leads me to believe that you are looking at the objects themselves and confusing them with the targets (the location you go to when clicking on a bookmark or link).

Kind regards,

[PHK]

...

Like David, I am a bit confused about your statement there PHK, the bookmarks and destination TARGETS will remain attached to the original TARGET page. The other items you mention, Highlights and sticky notes, leads me to believe that you are looking at the objects themselves and confusing them with the targets (the location you go to when clicking on a bookmark or link).
...

I don't think I am confused although I may not have expressed myself clearly. The following is meant to make clearer what I was talking about.

Let's say I want to take three pages and merge them into one sheet On each page, I have created Bookmarks and Named Destinations.

image.png

image(1).png

image(1)(1).png

Sorry, I lost the screenshot for this page showing the Bookmark Action destination but I am sure you get the point.

image(1)(1)(1).png

image(1)(1)(1)(1).png

You can see an action has been created for each Bookmark that shifts the window focus to a specific location at the inherit zoom level. After creating Named Destinations, the Destinations panel show the Title and the page number of the destination.

Then I combined those files and the Bookmarks with their destinations that have been preserved as have the Named Destinations and the page numbers of the destinations.

Then I select all three page thumbnails and execute "Merge Pages," electing to Remove the source pages, which creates a new page showing a stack of the three source pages with both the Bookmarks from the source pages and the Named Destinations. You will also notice that there are now no numbers relating to the Named Destinations and there is no Action for the active Bookmark. I assure you there are no Actions for any of the Bookmarks.

image(1)(1)(1)(1)(1).png

To me, this last screenshot clearly shows without confusion on my part that the Bookmark Actions no longer exist after the merge nor do the page numbers of the Named Destinations in the Destinations panel. Is it not clear that the destinations for these Bookmarks and Named Destinations have been eliminated?

If I did the same exercise with Comments or Links, I think we all agree those destinations would survive. That is what I find illogically different from Bookmarks and Named Destinations.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, PHK

The section we were quoting was where you explicitly said:

And Comments (Higlights, etc.) also "always remain connected to the respective target page," too.

But it seems Bookmarks and Named Destinations do not. That's the rub. They should.

This is the bit that had me confused, as it seemed to imply that you were looking at comments (A visible physical object on the page) as something that is identical to bookmarks (a non-tangible list of directions that point to a very specific page page identifier), which is being destroyed in the merge process.
This is the bit that I am conveying, it is not possible to create a bookmark which itself does not inherently have a tie in to the specific page identifier, that is what goes against the specification, we cannot create a bookmark which would retain this special handling you are looking for, in a way that would be compatible with any other apps.

Now, as mentioned previously, it may be possible to develop a workaround which would notice when bookmarks and the like are present and pointing to a page about to be destroyed, and change the data contained within to point to the replacement page, but for the moment, the only way that can be reliably translated is with a "replace pages" action, no other tool, including merge pages, can accomplish this without a significant rework of the each individual tool.

It is unlikely that we will see such a feature at any time in the near future, but it is something that the Dev team is now aware of the desire for, and hopefully in time they can fine a solution for us.

Kind regards,

[PHK]

...
This is the bit that had me confused, as it seemed to imply that you were looking at comments (A visible physical object on the page) as something that is identical to bookmarks (a non-tangible list of directions that point to a very specific page page identifier), which is being destroyed in the merge process.

Sorry to have confused you.

... it is not possible to create a bookmark which itself does not inherently have a tie in to the specific page identifier, that is what goes against the specification, we cannot create a bookmark which would retain this special handling you are looking for, in a way that would be compatible with any other apps.

Yes, I have always understood that. I meant, poorly stated, that I would just use Highlights in the conventional way as, well, highlights.

Now, as mentioned previously, it may be possible to develop a workaround which would notice when bookmarks and the like are present and pointing to a page about to be destroyed, and change the data contained within to point to the replacement page, but for the moment, the only way that can be reliably translated is with a "replace pages" action, no other tool, including merge pages, can accomplish this without a significant rework of the each individual tool.

I haven't yet got my head around this workaround but I'll work on it.

It is unlikely that we will see such a feature at any time in the near future, but it is something that the Dev team is now aware of the desire for, and hopefully in time they can fine a solution for us.

Thanks for that; I appreciate it. I think it is for the good of the product.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, PHK

TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: ↑Yesterday, 15:02
Now, as mentioned previously, it may be possible to develop a workaround which would notice when bookmarks and the like are present and pointing to a page about to be destroyed, and change the data contained within to point to the replacement page, but for the moment, the only way that can be reliably translated is with a "replace pages" action, no other tool, including merge pages, can accomplish this without a significant rework of the each individual tool.

I haven't yet got my head around this workaround but I'll work on it.

The keyword here is "develop", there is no workaround currently that will accomplish this as you need it, I am saying that possibly, at some point in the future, we may be able to offer a feature which makes this easier for you. Until then, you will need to update these items manually.

Kind regards,