In display modes such as FitPage, the edges of the page are obscured by PageView shadows and are not partially displayed

[rakunavi]

Hello all,

In PDF-XChange Editor, shadows are added to the inside of the page view frame, making it difficult to see the areas hidden by the shadows. If you are zooming in to display only a portion of the page, the rest of the page is hidden anyway, so these shadows are not a problem. The problem arises when the edge of the page view display area matches the edge of the page, as in the following display modes.

• Fit Page
• Fit Width
• Fit Height

In these modes, when the page is displayed right up to the edge, I think users expect that all information contained in the PDF document will be shown without any loss, even if it is at the edge of the page. However, in reality, the area within 1 pixel of the top of the page view frame is almost invisible due to the shadow effect. Although the effect weakens as it moves away from the edge, there is a noticeable decrease in contrast within a few pixels of the edge. The same is true for the bottom and left and right edges, although the degree to which the shadow hides them varies.

• shadow.png

In contrast, Acrobat does not display any such unnecessary shadows, so even if there is a one-pixel line at the edge of the page, it will be clearly displayed.

The width of this shadow is 5 pixels at the top, 4 pixels at the bottom, 4 pixels on the left, and 3 pixels on the right, but it remains constant regardless of the display scaling value. Therefore, the higher the scaling setting on a high-resolution display, the less noticeable this shadow will be. In that sense, it can be said that this is related to the content reported in the previous post.

• shadow_scaling.png

The following verification video compares a sample file with rectangle comments placed along the top and bottom edges of the page, displayed in PDF-XChange Editor and Acrobat. After setting the display mode to "Fit Page", the height of the application window is changed by dragging the window frame to confirm the change in rendering.

• sample.pdf

Note that in PDF-XChange Editor, the "Show Gaps Between Pages" option is disabled, and in Acrobat, the equivalent "Menu > View > Page display > Show page gutters" option is also disabled. In addition, to make the differences more obvious, I changed the PDF-XChange Editor UI theme to black and disabled the document toolbars. I also changed the desktop background color to black in Windows settings.

Video.webm

In the verification, compare the rendering of PDF-XChange Editor and Acrobat, focusing on the following three points in particular.

• figure1.png

• In point 1, the top part is hidden by shadows in PDF-XChange Editor, making it very difficult to see compared to Acrobat. As shown in the figure below, the line is drawn in a color with very low contrast, and it is only possible to see that there is a line there when the screen capture is greatly enlarged.
• Point 2 is not as much of an issue as point 1, but there is still a slight difference when compared to the results shown in Acrobat, which are displayed without any loss. When looking at PDF-XChange Editor alone, there may not be any apparent issues, but when compared to Acrobat, there is a noticeable difference in the brightness of the lines.
• In point 3, the line is not always displayed in PDF-XChange Editor. In Acrobat, although the line may be missing depending on the zoom factor, it is still displayed with a high probability. In the previous topic, I reported a problem where lines with a width of 0 pt were missing, and the developer responded with "there is very little we can do in such specific cases." The missing lines in point 3 may also be related to this.

• Results at a resolution of 1920x1080 and scaling of 100%
  1920x1080.png
  figure2.png
  
  Results at a resolution of 3840x2160 and scaling of 200%
  3840x2160.png
  figure3.png

Incidentally, these unnecessary shadows are not shown in the Crop Pages dialog. Therefore, when you set the crop area based on the preview in the Crop Pages dialog, you may get the impression that you have cropped too much when you see the page view rendering. Conversely, even if you feel the need to crop based on the page view display and open the Crop Pages dialog, it is possible that cropping is not actually necessary. This is not just theoretical. I have experienced this myself on numerous occasions.

• cropdialog.png

As mentioned above, the "Show Gaps Between Pages" option is disabled in this verification, but conversely, this means that enabling it will completely eliminate the shadow effects pointed out in points 1 and 2. Although the shadows inside the page view frames will remain, gaps will be added around the pages, so the page documents themselves will no longer be affected by the shadows. By default, this option is enabled, so you may think that there will be no problems as long as you do not change the option.

However, since it is desirable to have as large a rendering area as possible, and since the gap shown in the center in two-page display mode is distracting, it seems to me that most users disable this option. Additionally, please note that in Acrobat, even if the corresponding "Show page gutters" option is disabled, it can still be displayed correctly.

I believe that one of the most important features required of a PDF application is the ability to display documents accurately, as intended by the creator. The appearance of the UI is important, but I think the main premise is that it should not interfere with practicality.

If the boundary between the document and the frame is to look good in terms of design, it would be possible to do without shadows on the document side, as is currently the case, by devising the design of the frame side. This would be very helpful because it would not omit the content at the edge of the page and avoid confusion when editing.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message.

Best regards,
rakunavi

- PDF-XChange Editor PRO Version: 10.6.1 build 397
- Adobe Acrobat Reader Continuous Release Version 2025.001.20577
- OS Version: Windows 11 Pro / Home 24H2 Build 26100.4652
- PC Model: GMKtec Nucbox M7 Pro with HUION Kamvas Pro 19 / Lenovo IdeaPad C340-15IWL

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, rakunavi

Thank you for the report, I have passed it along to the dev team for review, though I cannot guess at this point whether this will be seen as a bug, or just artistic flair/design choice.

Kind regards,

[Mathew]

Hi Daniel,

This issue makes it difficult to read items that are up against the edge of pages. Because PXCE will not allow one to scroll the page edge away from the edge of the window, the shadow will always be over the long side of a page:

image.png

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Mathew

Thank you for the note, I have added this information to the report for the dev team's review.

Kind regards,