Feature request: Modify Highlight text selection

[chrkuhlmann]

Hi,

I'd like to request a feature to modify the extent of a highlight annotation (and maybe underline and strike-though) after it has been finished.

Rationale:
Often when highlighting text in a document, it happens that the highlight does not start or end at the correct letter (usually at the first or last letter of a word and especially frequent when a small proportional letter like "i" or "l" is at the highlight boundary).

To correct this, the user currently has to start all over again by deleting the highlight and applying a new one, even if only one part (beginning or end) is incorrect. Not only does this waste time, it also increases the chance that a similar mistake happens again by a factor of 2, since the correct portion needs to be redone.
It would be better if the existing highlight could be selected and handles would appear at its boundaries that would allow to move the beginning and end of the highlight selection individually.

It would be OK if for technical reasons, this could only be done for the last applied highlight annotation or only for annotations created by PDF XChange editor.

Thanks for considering.

Kind regards
Chris

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello chrkuhlmann,

While I pass your suggestion to the devs - you can start with the text selection.
You can place the mouse cursor at the start or end, and then drag to make a selection (that is not yet a highlight.
You can then use Ctrl + Arrow keys for precision selecting the last 1-2 characters of your text (or deselect them if one too many have been selected). When you can right click and from the context menu select to highlight that selection:

image.png

Kind regards,
Stefan

[chrkuhlmann]

Hello Stefan,

thanks for your reply and your suggestion to use text selection first.

I know that this method exists, but it has problems of its own:

• If using text selection first, highlighting becomes 2 step process (select text, then select highlight command), which slows markup down considerably in the best case scenario where no mistakes are made
• When the text selection is misplaced, you don't have to delete anything, but you have to start with the selection again when using the mouse, posing the same frustrating repetitions as with the highlight tool

The only reliable way for small font sizes (i.e. a whole page on the screen) is to

1. coarse position the cursor for the start point with the mouse,
2. use arrows to correct if necessary,
3. then use ctrl+shift+arrows to make the selection and
4. press the shortcut for highlight

That works in the regard that you make very few errors, but it also takes considerably more time: It requires 3 or 4 steps to complete a highlight and a switch between keyboard and mouse (try using ctrl+shift+arrow with one hand...).
I also find that I need to focus so much on the method that it is hard to focus on the content I want to highlight.

And just to explain why selection mishaps in PDFs are far more frequent than in word processors:

• I find that the mouse caret of the highlight tool very often is not well aligned with the line I want to highlight (the caret seems to be well positioned but the selection marks the line below the one I intended to select
• Due to the font coming from the document I read, the position where I need to place the caret to start with the intended letter (but not with the space before or the letter after it) varies from document to document and maybe also zoom level. The same goes for vertical line position (letters vs. caret).
  I know this is a technical limitation of the PDF format and not specific to PDF XChange Editor, but it makes mishaps at the beginning of a selection a lot more common than in a word processor or text editor. Unfortunately, its easy to correct the end of a selection while doing it but the beginning cannot be changed after the fact.

So thanks as always for trying to provide a work-around, but unfortunately, it is not really an improvement for me this time.

Maybe you can add those points from this post to the ticket, they might help to understand the issue better and why it happens rather frequently.

Kind regards,
Chris

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, chrkuhlmann

I don't believe that Stefan was intending that as the solution, but simply indicating that what he shows there might be the best option in the meantime, while our Dev team looks into the possibility, to see what we can offer.

As a quick extended suggestion, if you are always trying to snap highlights to the ends of whole words, and never partial words, you can double click before you drag the mouse to cause the selection to snap:

PDFXEdit_VrN7jUNg3T.gif

(While the highlight tool is incompatible, you can also triple click with the "select text" tool, to select a full paragraph for quick annotating, if needed).

At the moment, I can say it is highly unlikely that this will be able to extend to editing any existing items, but we will have to see. I would not be surprised however, if the dev team is on board with the suggestion to make them temporarily adjustable immediately after placement, until the comment is de-selected.

We are still waiting for their final decision, but they are now aware of this request.

Kind regards,