? Why Are Sticky Notes the Only Comments That Can Be Applied to Selected Page Regions?

[PHK]

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If I use the Select Page Region tool and I want to add a Comment to that region, it seems my only option is Sticky Notes. Nothing happens when I select a different Style from the context menu and hit Set Current and the Comment style remains Sticky Note. Why can't I apply the Highlight Area (why not "Region"?) tool, for instance?

I know that I can do the reverse, i. e., use the Comment tool (Highlight Area, for instance) and then select the region but why not the other way around (select region, then select a Command tool other than Sticky Notes), too? If it can be done for Sticky Notes, then surely it can be done for other Comment types, no?

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, PHK

It is not being added to the "region" but simply the location you right clicked. You can see the same option appear when right clicking with many tools, such as "edit text", or just when right clicking outside of the selected region entirely:

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Sticky notes are unique in this respect because they only exist at one "point" on the page, they do not need height/width coordinates, or other relative factors during creation.

Practically speaking, the only "comment" tool for creating a new object on the page that actually works, is the "add link" tool. Since links are "technically" hyperspecialized comments that are disconnected from all the others with some unique logic (fun fact: this is why it took so long for "text hyperlinks" to be added as a feature inside of other text comments; since you cannot put a "region comment" inside of another comments text box.)

Now, I can ask if we would be able to add the "rectangle", "area highlight" and perhaps "text box" tools to the select region tool, but the rest are unlikely to be viable additions.

Kind regards,

[PHK]

Thanks for the explanation, Daniel.

But I am left a bit baffled as to why you guys can add links to a selected rectangular region but not simple text or highlight. I can appreciate that was a significant challenge and congratulations on doing it. But if that was possible, why not simple text strings or fill colors?

I have to admit that I do have a decent workaround. But first, let me give you some context. I like to 'paste' many pages onto a single large sheet. Bank statements for instance. So I will have multi-page monthly statements arrayed in rows and columns representing years and months. Zoomed out I can see the general shape of things and I can roughly figure out where a report from a month of a given year can be found. Then, I zoom into 100% or something readable on a promising spot. And then I may have to pan around to find the entry I am looking for. Whilst I can see the dates as days and months, the report might not show the year. Costco Visa statements are a good example where those people do not put the year of the statement on every page. My solution is to use the Highlight Area Tool selecting, in this example, the year and type in the text of the year (2024, for example), set the opacity to a low number and then when the cursor is over that area a sort-of tooltip will show "2024" when the cursor is not moving.

But as I wrote above, it would be 'nice' to select a region first and then do the rest second. Some goes for ordinary highlighting. I hope this is something you can sell to DevTeam as a relatively simple enhancement but I appreciate that they may be working on more pressing issues.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, PHK

It is not that we cant, just that we didn't do so yet, seeing as this is still a fairly new tool, I think that is reasonable. As I said, I have already passed this along to the Dev team for consideration.

[Edit]Annnd now we have a ticket!
RT#7618: FR: Select region > Apply region-type comments

Kind regards,

[PHK]

Excellent! Thank you, Daniel.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]