Suggestion/Feature Request for Commenting & Markup Tools

[rainwalker]

Dear Developer(s),

In the past six months I've become an avid supporter of PDF-XChange Viewer as the best PDF viewer (freely) available. I've installed it on well over fifteen computers, belonging to my family, girlfriend, girlfriend's family, etc. Suffice it to say that I'm very impressed with your quick & very functional software.

But I do have a problem. I'm a tablet pc user and, since I'm also a college student, I seriously value commenting, markup, and annotation tools for use with PDF files. I've tried several programs, including PDF Annotator, Bluebeam Revu, and Jarnal, but none of them have kept me satisfied. That said, I can't keep working with PDF-XChange Viewer's weaker annotation tools for much longer. I need two major changes to the current tools:

1) The highlighter needs to be able to highlight anywhere I put the cursor/pen, not just the recognized text. I often write little notes with highlighters (to save myself time) but that's just not possible in the tool's current form.

2) Equally important, the pencil tool has got to lose those little blue boxes that appear around every drawn line. It is very difficult to handwrite any kind of quality sentence using that tool and this is a must-have feature for serious tablet users.

As I said before, I'm a huge fan of PDF-XChange Viewer. I'd gladly pay $20 to $50 for this program if it just added those two features; no other new features necessary. But, as it stands now, I've got a long semester's worth of PDF documents to get through and I need these tools sooner rather than later. My wallet is on the table next to me and I'm very ready to spend it on whatever program will get this job done; and, sorry as I am to say it, Bluebeam's [bloated] Revu, coming out with version 6.0 soon, is looking to be the likely candidate, unless I hear some good news from a Tracker developer.

Thanks for all the high-quality work, developer(s). Hope to see more of it soon!

P.S. - You know what? I'd even donate $35 to Tracker Software if a developer simply promised me that they'll get those features in soon.

[quant]

rainwalker,

we are on the same boat and you wrote almost exactly what I was planning to write, so I won't repeat it.
I already have the bleubeam revu license (because it seems to be the best thing for tablet use) but it has many quirks, not very responsive developers, and it is quite slow in rendering pdf files compared to pdf-xchange.

I'd like to suggest the following feature: "pen commitment interval"

This means that once you stop writing with pen (release the left click button) and put a pen on another place and start writing within "pen commitment interval", it will treat it as a single comment (sentence). It's an absolute must for tablet use.

Thanks a lot for consideration!

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

Regarding your requests -:

1) - you can use the pen tool (or rectangle with transparency) instead of the highlight tool.

With the highlight tool there are significant development difficulties in realizing this option.

2) 99% sure we can/will realize this. Still not sure how, but will endeavour to provide at the earliest possibility.

It will be in the FREE version and there is no need to donate anything - but do look at the PRO version when released in the Spring - if you still feel that way - please do purchase that - the price will be well within the budget suggested

HTH

[rainwalker]

Sounds great! Thanks for the quick reply, both of you.

Referring to what quant's good idea about the pen committment interval, I'd still also like to see the option to remove those blue boxes (or just see them removed altogether). And has an eraser tool ever been considered? That would negate part of the need for the blue boxes and make overall commenting much smoother.

Also, I tried your recommendation and used a transparent rectangle to do some highlighting. It was a little awkward, although I'm sure I could get used it (although I still wouldn't be able to write notes to myself without switching tools again). Instead, would you consider adding a Second Pencil Tool? Or perhaps the option to add as many customized/customizable Pencil Tools as needed? That way, I could just keep one thin, opaque pencil for typical commenting & markup and another thick, transparent pencil strictly for highlighting.

Thanks again for this wonderful product! I feel like I can guarantee you that the changes we're talking about in this thread, if implemented and so long as PDF-XChange Viewer remained free or cheaply available, would sway the vast majority of tablet pc users to Tracker Software's favor.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

yes will look at the suggestions made - though it may be a little way down the line - there is plenty in the 'cooker' now - so will come back to - just as soon as time allows.

[quant]

Instead, would you consider adding a Second Pencil Tool? Or perhaps the option to add as many customized/customizable Pencil Tools as needed? That way, I could just keep one thin, opaque pencil for typical commenting & markup and another thick, transparent pencil strictly for highlighting.

yes, this is done in a very nice way in bluebeam pdf, where you have a "toolbox", and you can define various tools and use then efficiently ...

Would love to see (sooner or later) sth similar in pdf-xchange pro

[mbetrafa]

Hello again,
Have you had chance to add this feature? When are you planning to do? I checked the website with hope, but I didn't see it.
Thank you again for this good software.
Bye

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

we intend to make some changes to the Pen Tool in the actual build 37 release due later this week.

thanks

[anybody]

Referring to what quant's good idea about the pen committment interval, I'd still also like to see the option to remove those blue boxes (or just see them removed altogether).

I agree. Handwriting suffers from the blue boxes. But instead of a commitment interval, the selection feature could be separated from the pen tool:

- The pen tool could be just used for hand-writing

- a separate selection tool would be resposible for all the 'blue box' stuff like selection, moving, resizing

This separation is used in most graphic tools and is a kind of defacto standard (i.e. ms-paint, gimp, corel draw. Microsoft Office Review Ink tools, etc)

You might consider it as an alternative to the commitment intervall.

Despite of this, the xchange viewer is the best pdf-viewer!

[chocobo2k]

I will drop my ball here as well. I always used Adobe Reader and sometimes FoxIt Reader since it is portable then I thought of purchasing a Tablet PC as the ultimate eBook reading device. Now I am waiting for my tablet to arrive on Thursday with UPS to try out PDF-Xchange. I am a college student and I take notes a lot. I tried to use PDF-Xchange pen tool using the trackpad to try it but it fails the epic. It is totally unfriendly for tablet use as the previous posts mentioned. I'd like to see more support devoted for tablet users. I haven't tried BlueRev or PDF Annotator yet. Maybe I will give them a shot. I like PDF-Xchange and I even went ahead and started doing the Arabic translations to support this great software. We need more support for Tablet PC. Please developers don't let me down.