x and y specification for bookmarks

[OHiller]

I use the x and y-coordinates to tell the bookmarks where they should point at a specified page in a pdf-document consisting of scanned pages. This works with my older Pro-version (if the zoom is greater then size of the screen). But at least the newest demo version on my new computer ignores this specifications and heads just somewhere on the bookmarked side. What must be done, so that the bookmarks work like I am used to it?

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello OHiller,

Welcome to our forums.
Can you please check in the Editor's preferences (Ctrl + K) - whether you have this option turned on:

image.png

As it might have effect on how your bookmarks work!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[OHiller]

I tried it out. It doesn't matter if this box is checked or not. The behaviour is the same.
Greetings Oliver

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, OHiller

Could I possibly ask for a video of what you are seeing, and perhaps what you expect, it would also help to have a copy of your document, so we can look at the script in these bookmarks and see what may be causing these issues.

Kind regards,

[OHiller]

Thank you for your efforts. I did send an e-mail to the provided adress.
Greetings Oliver

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello OHiller,

Thanks for the sample file!
We received it and I had a look.
The PDF file is set up to open displaying two pages side by side in "non continuous" mode (so only the two pages in question and no previous or later pages are to be shown):

image.png

If you change that to single page continuous mode:

image(1).png

You would see that your bookmarks are taking you to the correct section of the correct page.
I am not posting screenshots of the actual document here - as I am not sure how confidential it's content is.

However it does seem like the bookmarks are working as they should with the correct view mode. When the View mode asks for two pages to be shown fully side by side - that takes precedence and the bookmark can only take you to the two pages view.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[OHiller]

No that does not work. It is right that the documents opens in double page layout. But as you can see in the screenshot, for reading I put it then into single page mode and use a zoom of 300 %. By the way it does not work in the continous mode as well. I use Version 10.1.3., build 383 and the new Win 11 operating system.
In addition I found your screenshots in your E-mail reply. It does not navigate you to the right position as well. 6.1 Entropie... should stay on top of the window as I assigned 375 pt for the y-axis (if you use mm instead of points then the figure is 132,29 mm).

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, OHiller

From what I can see here, the document seems to work as expected in all view modes and at various zoom levels, including single page or continuous, both at 300% zoom as you mention...
I have blurred a good portion of the image, but left the key point visible to showcase how this is working as intended and as indicated by the preview:

PDFXEdit_oBdGshzQzZ.png

If you are expecting the 6.1 to be at the top of the visible area after clicking the link, you would need to define a height of around 280pt, not 375pt:

image.png

Kind regards,

[OHiller]

Now I am confused and start to panic. The headline (6.1 Entropie...) is located just under 375, so I pointed y to 375. On my installation on the old computer (pdf-editor editor plus version 8.0 build 331.0) it works likes this. Even that it shows the same screen if I go to "Destination Properties". See attachment (you see that 6.1... is located on the top of the screen in the background - I did not change the position after I pushed the bookmark. But the smaller window on top shows the same detail as on your example). To test it out I installed the old Pro-Version on my new Computer (version 7.0 build 325.1; I guess it came then to 8.0 by updating within the 1 year range). Strange enough the behaviour on my new computer with Vers. 7 is now the same like the new 10 version and like you have it as well. Could it be a bug in the 8 Version, my installation or is there somewhere another adjustment to make? I hope not because that means that I would have to rework thousands of bookmarks for correct usage.

Example bookmark old version komp.jpg

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Hi all,

Can there be confusion about the direction of the Y-Axis?

You can set the Y-Axis to point from bottom to top OR from top to bottom.

You can change this behavior by a right-mouse-click on the document measurements at the bottom of the window (or also by a right-mouse-click on the horizontal or vertical ruler) and then selecting "Bottom-Up Y-Axis" (ON or OFF is marked with a check mark). You can also see changing the vertical ruler.

The Y-position of the bookmark in your specific pdf can indeed change from 280pt to 375pt or vice-versa when you point to it, depending on the ON/OFF status of the Bottom-Up Y-Axis.

Does that help?
>

PDF-XChange Editor - Y-Axis.png

[OHiller]

Well that does not solve the issue. All my bookmarks still heads to the wrong position now. But if I change the direction of the ruler like you stated, then I can at least use the shown y-position to find out the correct position in the futture.
Could there be a confusion in the general setup about the y-axis somewhere? At the end it would be good if the bookmarks work correct on any pdf-viewer and hopefully the problem can be somehow corrected automatically.

[OHiller]

My next idea was to to export the preferences of pdf-xchange from my old computer to the new one. But that made no changes in this regard.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, all!

Willy I think that may have been partially correct, however the "actions" menu always shows point values for page position value in "bottom up" mode, so this should not be a point of miscommunication.

OHiller , Perhaps I have not explained what we found quire well enough...
The bookmark is pointing to a specific page location, which as you can see in the preview, is a few lines of text above what you think it should point to. This is not some error on our end, but an intrinsic part of this bookmark and how it was created (the same position is given when clicking the bookmark in various applications, including Adobes products. Bookmarks do not dynamically update their positions to reflect where similar page text is, they only hold the coordinates as they were assigned.

Kind regards,

[OHiller]

Yes I get the feeling that something must be wrong with my old setup, which might leaded me to set up wrong y-positions. But this applies to all bookmarks on all pdfs. If I go to my old computer the bookmarks head to the correct position. If I use my new computer the bookmarks of the same pdf heads to the wrong position.

upps, now the bookmarks behave on my new computer in the same (from my point of view correct) way. But it wouldn't be a good idea to keep this, if it leads to confususions on any other viewer. Could it be that the Preference import on my new computer yet did change the behaviour after I restarted the program? Should I send you the preference output per e-mail?

Greetings Oliver

[Willy Van Nuffel]

If I understand it correctly then, on your old computer with version 8.0 build 331.0 the bookmarks head to the position that you had intended. With an older build 325.1 nor with the newest build 383 that works no more like you had in mind.

Unfortunately I do not have a copy of build 331 anymore. I tried with build 332 and it heads to the (let us say) correct position, like shown in the destination properties.

What you can do, to verify if it could be a bug in version 331, is copy the corresponding "PDF Editor" installation-folder from your old computer to an other subfolder of "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\" on your new computer and start PDFXEdit.exe from there.

Kind regards.

[OHiller]

No it is not that easy. After I installed the old version 7.0 build 325.1 on my new computer it still worked in your"correct" way. The "wrong" behaviour in my way started on my new computer after I exported the "general preferences" of pdf-xchange from my old computer to the new computer and restarted the programm.
Now I renamed the folders with the old version and installed the newest version 10 again. And if I start the new version it still behaves in the"wrong" way. So I guess there is something wrong in the "general preferences". It is not a question of which version I use.
Greetings Oliver

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Thanks for your answer Oliver.

So, if you go into the File-menu > Manage Settings > Reset Settings, PDF-XChange Editor should again behave like it is supposed to ?

Please be sure to first keep a version of the "wrong" settings (via File > Manage Settings > Export Settings).

Maybe you can send your exported "general preferences" to pdf-xchange support for investigation.
It would be interesting to know what causes that strange behavior with your bookmarks.

Kind regards.

Willy

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Willy Van Nuffel,

You beat me to it! I was literally just writing a similar reply!

@OHiller - please try the settings reset and let us know the result. A copy of your current settings that are causing this behaviour would also be appreciated!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[OHiller]

yes we make progress. I resetted the settings, restarted the programm and the bookmarks act in the "right" way. Then I imported the Preferences again, restarted the programm and the bookmarks act in the "wrong" way. All on Vers. 10 now. I send you the "Export File" per e-mail.
Greetings Oliver

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, OHiller

Thank you for passing those along, I found our culprit. It seems that the "ribbon page layout" is what was causing this discrepancy. From what I can tell following links in ribbon page layout, seems to invert the y axis positions, compared to the Standard page layout.

image.png

The actual bookmarks in this document do indeed point to the positions I mentioned earlier, based on what you have said, and unfortunately I cannot offer any help fixing them, it will be a manual process. The question now however, is that if you have been using the ribbon layout since version 7, that means you have for the past 5 years, been using the files like this. Since the vast majority of users do not use the "ribbon page layout", I expect that if no one has complained about these positions being incorrect before now, it is not a major item to leave the old ones as is, and only worry about checking this for future bookmarks.

I have informed the dev team of this difference between the two viewing modes. Depending on the solution, one of two things will happen.
1. (most likely) The ribbon layout, as the one will less active users, will see a change. It will begin working just as the standard layout does now (Ie, from your perspective everything will be incorrect) for consistency.
2. The Standard layout, may be updated to work similarly to the Ribbon layout instead, which is less likely as it would break bookmarks in nearly every document currently in circulation which were designed with the standard layout in mind.

Kind regards,

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Thanks @pdf-xchange support for finding the cause of this different behavior of bookmarks in PDF-XChange Editor.

It's surprising that it took so many years before it was discovered.

I suppose that this problem will be resolved in one of the following releases ?

Kind regards.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Willy Van Nuffel

The length of time it took to discover this is more a testament to how few people actually use it than anything else. But unfortunately, it does not seem likely to be resolved quickly.
The Dev team has expressed a desire to re-write The Ribbon page layout due to the large number of bugs and inconsistencies within it. This essentially means that things will likely stay as they are for quite a while, until that project is complete.

Kind regards,

[OHiller]

Ok you found the problem. Thank you for this. I would never have found the problem. I don't know how I came to set up this layout. Maybe because I didn't like the automatically scrolling to the next side. However now I can think about a solution. If there will be a fix for this, it would be nice to have a fix tool which could be applied to a document. I guess this would be an inverting of the y-figures depending on the page size for the bookmarks?
I guess the first solution would be better even from my point of view. As the bookmarks should work correct with every pdf-viewer. On the other side it would be easier if I can set the position direct to that point where it is and not have to calculate it from the bottom. Why is it made in that more complicated way?
Greetings Oliver

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, OHiller

Nothing we offer here will fix your misaligned bookmarks, Unfortunatley this does seem to eb a side effect of using the ribbon layout itself.
The best workaround would be to stop using the admittedly very buggy Ribbon layout entirely, as that causes numerous issues which the Dev team is aware of and currently, is not a high priority to fix because the Standard layout is much more widely used, and functions exactly as expected, so there is a viable and easily accessed workaround to all of those problems.

You do not need to calculate where the links should point, you can simply drag the nodes in the preview when editing the bookmark to point to the correct location.

PDFXEdit_UGziYDLzYv.gif

Kind regards,

[OHiller]

Thank you for your efforts in finding the problem. Now I have the chance to do it better in the future and fix the older links. Even that it could take month of extra work. But in general it is more a cosmetic problem, so nothing to bother to much about.
Greetings Oliver

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

[OHiller]

As I started to correct the bookmarks I recognized another thing what would be helpfull (actually I had this already in mind since some years). From version 8 to 10 you made already some improvments. Especially here the check point “Media-Box normalisation to (0,0)” at the crop pages function.
Now it would be nice to have a function to manipulate the x and y coordinates for bookmarks in hole. Something like a box where you can put values for them in . So I can set all x-Values to 0 for example. Or all y values to the top (which would depend on the page size) or a given value. In addition it could be sometimes usefull to tell the programm to move the coordinates for a specified value. Like every x-value minus 20 for example or all y-values +10 (in addition to the example above, I could set then the x-Value to Top+10). And then a check box to apply this function to all booksmarks, selected bookmarks, bookmarks which lead to even pages and bookmarks which lead to uneven pages.
This function would help me mainly to save much time in realigning the bookmarks-coordinates after cutting off side margins.
By the way if it would have an invert-function (depending on the page size) in addition it could help me even with the problem which came up in the above discussed problem.
If such a function would be implemented, it would make my work on documents a lot easier.
Greetings Oliver

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, OHiller

I cannot promise that such functionality will be brought in as a core feature, but It is possible to accomplish much of that with some advanced JavaScript. If you have any JS knowledge, The Adobe JS API reference manual will probably help, you can use Ctrl_J to open the JS panel in our Editor.
https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat ... apiref.pdf

Kind regards,

[Mathew]

Sadly I don't think javascript can do it because the x and y coordinates of a bookmark can't (currently) be changed through javascript. I requested something but not sure if we can get the devs to do it viewtopic.php?t=41185

The only way I can think to do this en-masse would be to export the bookmarks to text, then manipulate the text in excel and re-import the bookmarks.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Mathew,

I think that the limitation is unfortunately in the JS API.
As you said in your other topic - you can only set a new action for a bookmark - not really edit an existing one.

Kind regards,
Stefan