[FR] show comments drawn outside of crop bounds SOLVED

[Mathew]

I frequently get markups from people who will add comments that are outside of the crop bounds. In Acrobat, they appear over the grey surrounding the crop box. This works because I can see them:

image.png

However, in PDF XChange Editor they are completely hidden. I can't use PXCE for these documents:

image(1).png

Can we get an option so that the comments outside the boundary can be seen?

[lev]

I second the request. My colleagues make comments in Bluebeam where they are visible when placed outside the page boundary, so I have to move them inside the page to see.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello,

Unfortunately this issue has been rejected a few times in the past, and after a brief talk with the Dev team today, once again for much the same reasons. While this might work nicely in some specific configurations, the reality is that there are far more exceptions to that rule, and countless complex workarounds we would need to build in from the ground up in order to have it remotely usable.

As such, I am sorry to say that we have no plans to change this handling for the foreseeable future.

Since you mentioned it, you may also notice that even though Acrobat shows these items visually, you are unable to interact with them in the normal ways, and last I checked, it does not even allow you to move an existing annotation outside the page bounds. It feels more like their visibility in Acrobat is a bug, than an intended feature, given how disconnected from the normal handling they are.

Kind regards,

[Mathew]

As such, I am sorry to say that we have no plans to change this handling for the foreseeable future.

Sad to hear that. Just fyi comments outside the crop box also show on Bluebeam:

image.png

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Mathew

Indeed, but we don't often attempt to compare to Bluebeam as they offer a multitude of features that we cannot even consider implementing (usually due to the specification prohibiting it, or it being undefined, and thus dangerous to implement becuase of the lack of reliable data others could use to understand it).

Perhaps we will reconsider it in a few years. Only time will tell.

Kind regards,

[Mathew]

...they offer a multitude of features that we cannot even consider implementing...

I'm slowly working on finding ways to substitute for them through javascript, though

This topic led me down a rabbit hole: I've made a workaround tool.
[edit] As of build 394: In v0.5 I think I've got it to work properly both to expand the page and restore it. For PXCE < build 394 it still pops a message (that I can't control) for some documents.

This tool expands the Media and Crop box to include all comments. There's also an option to expand one side by a specific amount, or revert back to the trim box. The tool requires a registered copy of PDF XChange if you don't want watermarks all over the place!

Extract the zip file and save the .js files in %APPDATA%\Tracker Software\PDFXEditor\3.0\Javascripts

expandToComments v1.1.zip

It adds a button on the "Organize" ribbon under "Crop" in the Ribbon UI and under "Documents" menu in the Classic UI:

image.png

Running the tool opens a dialog that allows you to pick which pages you want to expand.

image(1).png

Expand Crop Box to Annotations
This expands the crop box so that all annotations on the selected pages will be inside the crop box. The padding number is an additional amount to expand by at the edge of annotations. Set it to zero to expand exactly to the edge of annotations.
Expand by
This allows one to manually set how much to expand the crop box by, and on which side. I use this a lot so that there is space off the side of the page to add comments .
Revert Media to Trim Box
If you set the trim box to the previous media box, this will allow you to revert the page crop box back to its original dimensions.
Set Trim box to the current page boundaries.
It sets the Trim box (appears as a green box if Preferences > Page Display > Display Art, Trim, Bleed Boxes is checked) to the bounds of the current Media box. This allows one to revert the crop box back at a later time, and also provides a visual cue of the original page boundaries.
Change trim box even if it is already set
If a page has already been expanded and it shows the green trim box, leave this unchecked to keep the trim box as it was before (the original page boundaries), instead of setting it to the currently expanded page size.

So if your colleagues send you a pdf with comments off the sides:

image(2).png

you can figure out what they're going on about:

image(3).png

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Thank you for your effort, Mathew.

[Mathew]

I made a slight improvement so v0.4 now works a bit more reliably. The downside is depending on whether the document has a crop box defined, PXCE may pop up a dialog that can be ignored (I can't prevent it):

image.png

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Mathew,

Thanks for the update!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Mathew]

Build 394 fixed the issues I was running into with the doc.setPageBox() so I updated the tool (v0.5) a bit to set the Media, Crop and Trim boxes correctly, and also delete the Trim box when the Media and Crop box are reset.

For versions before build 394 the above version may pop up an annoying number of dialog boxes, so you may want to use v0.4:

expandToComments v0.4.zip

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Mathew,

Once again - thanks for updating that tool!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Mathew]

I've revised this tool to allow expanding by a specific amount on one side. Also added icons to the dialog and fixed some bugs.

expandToComments v1.0.zip

Changes in v1.0

• Save settings;
• add option to expand by a specific amount on one side;
• fix problems when dealing with rotated pages (!!);
• move GetPageRectangle to xutil;
• add illustration icons to dialog
• tested on v10.6 build 396

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Hello Mathew,

Thank you for updating the tool!

Regards.

[Mathew]

I know this has been posted in the forums often, and it keeps getting rejected; but this issue is a very regular pain for me; so I thought I'd return the favor and send another request: My clients frequently send me markups on drawings that go off the side of the page.

image.png

Not only will PXCE not show me these, but attempting to scroll at the edge of the page will make the page jump to the next page instead of at least allowing the edge of the page to scroll down. It's doubly frustrating:

1. I can't see the comment, and
2. then it jumps to the wrong page and I need to find my way back.

On a current project this is the same on most pages of this 200+ page document.

Even though I've marked the topic "solved" it is not really so - my tool is just a workaround.

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Hello Mathew,

Thank you for your feedback on this.

I forwarded your report to our developers and asked them if they could reconsider their decision and try to find a way to resolve it.

Regards.

[Mathew]

Thank you Dimitar.

I've thought about it over the weekend, and I think the second point is the one that I find most difficult because I see no way to work around it (the first point I have the above workaround already): The erratic (IMO) way that PXCE behaves when it encounters the crop boundary.

It appears to me that there is in fact a lot of effort and code to force all the following happen:

1. When scrolling up or down on a page in single page view (or side-by-side, just not "continuous")
   image.png
   when the top of the page gets to the top of the screen, the scroll suddenly turns into "next page". See this demonstration:
   scrollJump.gif
   This depends on the zoom, because if the page is fully zoomed out, it always changes pages; and if zoomed in and within the page bounds, it stays on the same page.
2. When inserting new comments, if they are drawn off the side of the page, they jump onto the page losing the initially chosen location. Demo:
   annotJump.gif
3. This is a dual problem:
   (i) When pasting comments between pages, if one page has a larger crop box than the other, and some of the copied comments happen to land outside the crop box on the paste page, the program arbitrarily rearranges items.
   (ii) It also prevents one from dragging the comments to the correct location (they just jump back):
   pasteJump.gif
   In the above gif animation, notice that the comment pointing to Grid 8 has been moved away from the item it refers to. After pasting, I try to drag the selected group to the correct position, but it jumps away. (I know it's possible to use the arrow keys and slowly get them to the correct position, and I've made a tool that will do it too, but it's still most intuitive to be able to just move them.)

What I think is needed is an option "Enforce page boundaries" (or @rakunavi's suggestion "Snap to Page" viewtopic.php?p=190110#p190110 ) which, when off, disables all the code that makes the above happen. We've talked about "bloat" but this has been such an ongoing pain for so many years since build ~331 that I advocate that it's worth adding yet another option. Please!
A quick search gives the following topics where it's been discussed:
viewtopic.php?t=39045
viewtopic.php?t=45378
viewtopic.php?t=31547
viewtopic.php?t=36579
viewtopic.php?t=43437

[Mathew]

Hopefully done fiddling with this tool - I've been using it a lot lately and added a couple of options.

expandToComments v1.1.zip

Changes in v1.1

• Option to preserve trim box if it is already set;
• option to pad edges around annotations

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Thank you for the feedback.

We will see what can be done about this.