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Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context menu

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 4:15 am
by vonderose
To my mind, the Editor is quite good. Though there are still some things that bother me, and I very much hope they can be fixed before long.

1) The rendering of the text layer: spaces before and after characters

The Editor adds a great number of blank spaces not only between words, but also within words, sometimes to the point of making the text unreadable.
The PDFs in question were created with the help of Abbyy Finereader 12. If I open them in the old PDF XChange Viewer, the text layer is readable. No blank spaces in-between characters, only additional blank spaces between words. The same applies to Adobe Acrobat.
As I see it, excessive spaces between words are manageable and easy to get rid of. However, blank spaces separating the characters within words are an entirely different cup of tea. They undermine the wohle idea of OCR and searchable documents.
Finally, I should perhaps add that, opening the same documents with Foxit PhantomPDF or Foxit Mobile PDF running on Android, there were no blank spaces whatsoever.

See for a discussion of the problem with replies from an Abbyy technician:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en# ... _uuWIxECR0
The important passage here is: “Regarding excess spaces, they are not written by the abbyyocr11 tool. (…) Excess spaces are put by PDF viewers when they consider distance between certain characters large enough to include a space character in between.”


2) Working with a stylus.

I still can’t trigger the context menu or add notes using the stylus.
Yet, I very much like to use my stylus while annotating a PDF document. However, pressing the stylus on the screen of my Windows tablet doesn’t do anything, whereas a somewhat longer touch with my thumb quite speedily opens up the context menu. In the days of the Viewer, I took the use of the stylus for granted (and then it used to work flawlessly). Nowadays, with the Editor, I happen to try again from time to time, quickly realizing that this is the one program I can't use it.

Please, see the thread I started on this subject quite a while ago. The ensuing remote session did, unfortunately, not give any clues as to what the problem might be.
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=23184
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... hp?t=20436


By the way, I really appreciate the “Summarize Comments” section of the PDF-XChange Editor, particularly the new function called “Sort by Visual order”. For me and my line of work, this new sorting possibility is extremely helpful. The whole section is just excellent and much better than anything else I know of.

PS: The name of two of the PDF files attached might be misleading. They are actually for testing with the Editor. Yet, their rendering, much to my surprise, is better with the Viewer.

Re: Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 8:54 am
by Will - Tracker Supp
Hi vonderose,

Thanks for the post and samples.
1) The rendering of the text layer: spaces before and after characters
The Documents seem to view identically for me, in the Editor, Viewer and Adobe Reader DC. Can you please send screens-shots of how this renders for yourself?

Also, please make sure that you're using Version 5.5 build 315 (information found under Help --> About):
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXVE5.zip
2) Working with a stylus.
I'll pass this along to the Dev. Team and will see what can be done to help. However, please be aware that touchscreen and stylus support is an ongoing process and many improvements will come build-by-build.

Cheers,

Re: Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:50 am
by vonderose
1) I do use Version 5.5, Build 315.0, from September 9 2015.


2) The three documents I uploaded are two-layered. The problems are with the text layer, which is under the image layer. Thus, you will have to grab the text by copying it or by exporting some highlighted parts. What matters to me, in this case, is the correct rendering of the OCR results. As you requested, here is a screen shot taken from the text of one PDF file the Editor distorts to the point of unreadability.


3) I certainly realize that touchscreen and stylus support is an ongoing process. I have been myself part of this process on the user side for almost two years, as my first post on the malfunction of the stylus in the Editor dates from January 8 2014. We then had, at the beginning of this year, a remote session on my computer with your developer. Thus, I appreciate your efforts. Yet, I think it is now high time they yielded some results.

Re: Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 2:05 pm
by Will - Tracker Supp
Hi Vonderose,

Thanks for the info. - I'm still identical results after deleting the image layer:
screen-shot.zip
(107.78 KiB) Downloaded 326 times
Is the issue that you have with copying/pasting the OCR text, rather than the visual appearance of it?
3) I certainly realize that touchscreen and stylus support is an ongoing process. I have been myself part of this process on the user side for almost two years, as my first post on the malfunction of the stylus in the Editor dates from January 8 2014. We then had, at the beginning of this year, a remote session on my computer with your developer. Thus, I appreciate your efforts. Yet, I think it is now high time they yielded some results.
While I understand your frustration, please do try to understand that tablet users represent a very small percentage of our userbase, so we cannot prioritize touchscreen support implementations, at this time. However, for this particular problem, I'll speak with the Dev. Team to see if there's anything that can be done within the next release or two, as you're not able to access the context menu and I suspect will (and should) be considered a barrier to general use.

Thanks,

Re: Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 3:18 pm
by vonderose
1) Yes, exactly as you say. So, please copy a page of one of my three PDF files and paste it into Word. You’ll see instantaneously what the problem is. You may also compare the results doing this same copying procedure with either the Editor or the Viewer or, for that matter, with any other PDF software. The only document that comes out (almost or totally) unreadable is the one produced by the Editor.

My workflow consists of highlighting various passages in an OCRed PDF file (the OCR software being Abbyy Finereader), then exporting the markings into a text file (my preference being rtf) via the Editor’s excellent exporting function. You may want to do this too using one of my three PDF files. Again, the outcome will be barely readable.

I can see that in the content pane of the Editor, the text layer appears to be just fine, even with my three PDF files. Yet, one does not only create a text layer so as to search a PDF file, but also to summarize it and to use its citations somewhere else. Hence, the copying.

Therefore, the question is whether the remark I cited in my first post is correct: “Excess spaces are put by PDF viewers when they consider distance between certain characters large enough to include a space character in between.” I believe it is.


2) I think I have been quite understanding over the last two years. I am not anymore. The thing is that I don’t know any single other software that prevents me from triggering the context menu with my stylus. There is only the stoically unresponsive Editor. Ironically, not only did the Viewer work great in this respect, the Editor furthermore (or every PDF marking program in general) is the one piece of software where this particular function would really come in handy. Last but not least, there was also the promise that this issue would soon be resolved. This promise is now already a couple of builds old.

Re: Excess spaces in between characters; Stylus and context menu

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:05 pm
by Patrick-Tracker Supp
Hello vonderose,
I see your issue with the white spaces and found what I hope to be a solution. Please go to File> Preferences (Edit Preferences in older builds) and go to Page text. Under Copy Text Options, choose Preserve only original white space:
Image
I still can’t trigger the context menu or add notes using the stylus.
Yet, I very much like to use my stylus while annotating a PDF document. However, pressing the stylus on the screen of my Windows tablet doesn’t do anything, whereas a somewhat longer touch with my thumb quite speedily opens up the context menu. In the days of the Viewer, I took the use of the stylus for granted (and then it used to work flawlessly). Nowadays, with the Editor, I happen to try again from time to time, quickly realizing that this is the one program I can't use it.
Could you please go to Preferences> Commenting and ensure 'switch to pencil tool with digitizer' is not checked? We have now two windows tablet devices with a stylus and we endeavour to make this work correctly for both, and by extension, we hope all others. We have a Lenovo ThinkPad as well as a Windows Serface PRO tablet. What device are you working on with your stylus?

Thank you!