Comment Rectangles Copying Neighboring Words SOLVED

[shade-cabin-hammock]

Hi,

I wanted to use the commenting rectangles, but seems like the rectangles have a wider intake in terms of copying the text than just the word they surround. Take a look below.

2022-12-21_14-32-37-042.png

Rectangling the word checksum, the preceding word "or" and the succeeding word "does" get added to the comment's copied text. So that you have

or checksum does

instead of just

checksum

On the same page there, just below this example, you'll see the underline of the word "different", which copies JUST that single word.

I've not seen this kind of less-than-strict interpretation of the comment features in terms of copying text with any of the other comment tools.

At first, I thought it may have been just the age of the file I was using - perhaps there was a text layer invisible around somewhere? Then, I ran a test on my own added text - and even with no style at all: same outcome, rectangles always seems to grab neighboring words.

Only if i VERY carefully put the rectangle around a word - cutting off the risers and descenders for the most part - would the rectangle copy JUST the word it was enclosing - and then, at that low scale, the rectangles themselves are almost impossible to see, so not of much commenting use.

What do you think is happening?

I'd love to be able to use the rectangles, but need them to have that sort of wysiwyg lock on the word they surround in terms of copying the text.

For now, I'll swatch over to underlines - but the variety of the rectangle outlines was valuable.

Example file attached.

Using 9.4, 364.0 build.

Sincerely,

SCH

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Hi,

I can only confirm the described behavior in PDF-XChange Editor (current build 366).

"Copy encircled text into pop-ups of Drawing comments" should behave the same as "Copy selected text into pop-ups of newly created Text Markup comments".

@Tracker support
Can you please verify this problem and make a new "ticket" if needed ? Thanks in advance.

Kind regards.

Willy

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Willy Van Nuffel, SCH,

I will need to check with our devs but presume this is intentional.
In my test image below you can see that a very "tight" rectangle around the word selects only that word, but the larger one selects the one after as well. The blue highlight is a text selection area - so the second rectangle 'touches' that second word - and we are including it in the comment pop-up:

image.png

This is likely for readability, and making sure that a word/sentence is not cut in the middle by a few pixels off selection.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[shade-cabin-hammock]

Hi Stefan,

Ah! Yep, yep. I see! Your explanation makes sense. Got it.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

SCH

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Hi all,

I am still curious for the answer of the development team.

Personally, I would like it to be less sensitive towards adjacent words. As long as there is no part of an adjacent word included in the selection, it should not be taken as text for the Comment.

Willy

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Willy Van Nuffel

I haven't heard from the Dev team on this and am unsure if Stefan has either, but I did some investingation on my own and I think I found the culprit. Tools like the "underline" are text annotations, and they are specifically designed to go "per-character" in their selection. Area tools on the other hand are not specifically designed for use with text in mind, and because of that, need to use a "whole word" based selection system. In this case, you will see the exact same behaviour from the "select text" tool, when you are performing an "area select" instead of a "text select":

PDFXEdit_fnVngh2IH0.gif

As you see in the gif above, once any of the white space between the two is "included" in the selection area, it is assumed that the next word is included. I expect that this is the intended handling of the "select text" tool, which the other comments are piggybacking off of. In effect, this means that area comments would need to be placed so that their bounding box does not overlap with any whitespace between words... At least in the meantime.

I reckon that Stefan will hear back from the Developers he has reached out to on this matter with a similar explanation, I will ask him to point this out and suggest that perhaps area comments should only include words that are fully encompassed by the placed comment, or only select a word once the comment touches the actual text of the word (ignoring the whitespace essentially).

Kind regards,

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Thanks for the additional information.

Yes, there are 'drawing'-comments and there are 'text markup'-comments (see the two marked options in my 'print screen' here above).

In my opinion, it would be better if only the text included in the selection would be used for the text in the drawing-comments (if possible).

Kind regards.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Willy Van Nuffel,

Thanks for sharing this! I can not promise that this would be changed - but we will bring your comments to the attention of our dev team.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Thanks @Stefan for bringing this to the attention of the Tracker Software development team.

The use of the Rectangle-comment (a 'drawing comment') and its transformation of text-selection to text in the comment itself is already a long while like it currently is, without any complaints from other users. Even though when you verify how it currently works, it is not logic: when you select one word, it should take only that word for the text in the comment and not the surrounding words with it.

So, I still hope that your dev team will take this in consideration (except if other people/users should disagree).

Kind regards.

Willy

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Got it Willy,

lets see what comes. Thanks for the feedback.