Accessing Comment Styles via the keyboard?

[otonet]

Hello all,
I use PDF-XChange Editor Plus (v.10.6.0 build 396 on Windows 11) as my primary PDF annotation tool.
I regularly use different colours for the Highlighting Text tool and different colours of text for the Typewriter Tool.

I am trying to figure out whether it is possible to open the "Comment Styles Palette" for selecting a particular style (i.e., colour) for the currently selected tool by using the keyboard only.
I've seen that, by using Alt-Shortcuts, I can select a specific tool: e.g., Alt-C-1 for selecting Highlight Text or Alt-C-TW for Typewriter Tool. However, I have not found a way to use the keyboard to select a particular Comment Style for the selected tool.
Is there a way to do so?

In the knowledge base, I've seen there is a way to define custom commands for specific styles and to assign each of them a keyboard shortcut, as shown here:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowledgeba ... nge-Editor
Since I use a lot of different colours, though, I would prefer if there was a way to select a style of the currently selected tool by keyboard input, rather than having to define a large number of custom commands and associated shortcuts.
I mean, I would then assign a shortcut for "select style 1", another for "select style 2", etc. and use the same shortcut for each currently selected tool.

Say I want to access 8 styles of the Typewriter Tool, and 8 styles of the Highlighter Tool. I would then only need 10 shortcuts (2 for accessing each tool and 8 for accessing each of the styles), rather than 16 (8 for each combination of tool and style).

Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

[Jordan - PDF XChange]

Hello otonet,

Welcome to the Forum.

It is possible to create custom styles for the tools in the "Comment Styles Palette":

image.png

Once you do that you will be able to find this comment style in the Help >> Customize Toolbar >> Commands panel :

image(1).png

And map a new short key that would be calling it.

[⚜ Kenny Lemens, P.E. ᵂᴵ]

Greetings,

An option that gets you close to your goal is this:

1. keypress to insert annotation
2. finish drawing annotation
3. keypress to change the color of the last inserted annotation

But I know the 'true' goal is to:

• keypress to insert
• keypress to change color
• finish drawing annotation.

If you are willing the make this compromise, the solution to accomplish this is as follows:

Create a custom button (of which you can assign to a keypress) for each color (or 'profile') you wish to apply. That code would look like this:

Code: Select all

app.addToolButton({
   cName: "Colour.Red",
   cLabel: "Colour.Red",
   cEnable: true,
   cExec: "clrRed(this)" }
);

clrRed = function(_doc){
   var aryPageAnnots = this.getAnnots();
   aryPageAnnots[aryPageAnnots.length - 1].strokeColor = color.red;
};

If this suits your fancy but you don't know how to 'code'; let me know and we can walk you through it.


There is also this possibility: you can switch your current 'Profile;' of which can be loaded out with a certain color. That is: if you want to draw a bunch of blue objects, load the profile "Blue" and all annotations are default 'blue'; vs. the "Red" profile; etc.

If this is a worthwhile direction, let me know and I can give you some more context.

May this be of Good Help;
⚜ Kenny Lemens, P.E. ᵂᴵ

[Jordan - PDF XChange]

Hello Kenny,

Thank you for your suggestion.

Lets see if that option is what otonet is looking for.