PDF XChange Forum

Hello all,

I feel a bit strange about the use of "Paint" in the name of the "Add Free Paint" command, but I wonder if it is natural to those of you who are fluent in English.

• figure.png

I imagine that the meaning of "Add Free Paint" here is as follows.

• Add Freehand Line
• Add Freehand Path
• Add Freehand Drawing

Based on my limited knowledge of English, the word "paint" inevitably conjures up the meaning of "to fill in with color".
How do you all feel about this?

Best regards,
rakunavi

Hello, rakunavi

From a technical perspective, any line in this editing mode is a "path", while a "line" is not accurate to the function, as it actually adds dozens of "line/path" objects in succession. Meanwhile, Drawing is in many cases too similar to "pencil" or "Pen", for which the terminology in PDF somewhat has already reserved as a "commenting" function. This left us with little choice for a "uniquely named" function, that would not lead people to expect alternate functionality.

As for you latter concern, I dont believe that I have ever seen an app name their "fill with color" tool a "painting" tool. An excellent example would be the MS Paint application, which offers, Pencil tools, as well as "paintbrush" tools, and very specifically, a "fill" tool, which uses more of a "bucket" icon.

I do agree that calling this "paint" feels a tad out of place, but I am stumped on what would be a better name, without any overlap for other similar functions, which this tool is distinctly not compatible with.

Kind regards,

Hello Daniel, thank you very much for your kind response.

I understand your explanation very well.

In the process of reviewing the Japanese UI translation, I routinely try to read the English version of the UI accurately, word for word, as if it were an English textbook. It is a good study of English for me because the original UI text uses extremely accurate wording.

Best regards,
rakunavi