Split Pages and Content Links

Forum for the PDF-XChange Editor - Free and Licensed Versions

Moderators: TrackerSupp-Daniel, Tracker Support, Paul - Tracker Supp, Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team, Chris - Tracker Supp, Sean - Tracker, Ivan - Tracker Software, Tracker Supp-Stefan

Post Reply
User avatar
PHK
User
Posts: 897
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:02 pm

Split Pages and Content Links

Post by PHK »

I see that if I split a page horizontally (I don't know about vertically) that the links from the text in the Content panel do not survive the split, below the split. The text seems to survive but if the user clicks on a specific line of text, its location is neither zoomed-to nor is there a blue bounding box around the page content below the split in the normal fashion. It is above the first split line but not below. This would seem to be an unintended outcome or perhaps even a "bug."

Comments?
All best,

FringePhil
User avatar
Dimitar - Tracker Supp
Site Admin
Posts: 1778
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:01 am

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by Dimitar - Tracker Supp »

Hello PHK,

Can we have an example file and a screenshot of what you see at your end?

Regards.
User avatar
PHK
User
Posts: 897
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:02 pm

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by PHK »

Dimitar - Tracker Supp wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 1:34 pm Hello PHK,

Can we have an example file and a screenshot of what you see at your end?

Regards.
It has come up for me on pages with confidential data that I am unprepared to share so I will have to create something for you.

But, in advance of doing that, let me elaborate a bit as I left out an important element in my initial posting.

It is not just splitting pages, it is really when I re-merge pages AFTER a splitting operation. Specifically, I get monthly statements from my broker that are formatted to letter-size pages as one would expect. It might be sixty pages. Each page has standard headers and footers that together take up about 30% of each page real estate but contain no interesting-to-me data. What I want as a final product of each monthly report is a single page of vertically-merged pages of significant data only. I want to eliminate those wasteful headers and footers. So I resize the pages down to 10% of the original, merge the pages vertically, and then add horizontal splits resulting in page with data, pages with footer of source letter page with the header of the next source letter page, rinse and repeat. When that is done for all, I go to the thumbnails panel and delete all those with the footer-headers and then merge again the data pages that are left. This reduces the vertical size of the super page and declutters by elimination of the redundant un-useful headers and footers. The text content is still "there" but the linkages to the page images are not below the first split line.

I hope this gives you a better idea of what my original post was trying to get at. When I can, I will try to create an example file.
All best,

FringePhil
User avatar
PHK
User
Posts: 897
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:02 pm

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by PHK »

OK, so here's an example which is not exactly as I described above but it does illustrate how the links from text content to image page perish, in some cases, when one merges, splits, and then remerges. It has been borrowed from the New York Times for illustrative purposes only. Pages 1 through 20 are the twenty single pages produced when using pdf print option. Those pages were OCR'ed and then scaled-down to 10% of original size and then merged; that is page 21. The next steps were to go through that super page, inserting split lines above footers and below headers. Then, I inserted more horizontal split lines to isolate the "advertisement" place holders where they appear. Then, I deleted all the page thumbnails that contained the footers and headers and the placeholders. Then, I re-merged the desired pages to a final super page that flows nicely focused on content.

All the text content seemed to have survived these manipulations and is viewable in the Content panel but the linkage from the content to the page image has not necessarily. One way of testing that is to do a search for something in the text. I searched for "Gary Gensler", as a trial, and got some hits that are "right" and some that are not. Remember, it is only page 22, the super page, that I am concerned about but there is no way to limit searches to a single page unfortunately and DevTeam is resistant to providing that enhancement.

See https://1drv.ms/b/s!AsBVtdXZAI89j_M8a-cnWeMt6dv-ZA

But the bottom line is that links from text content to viewable page images can get messed up by splitting and re-merging.
All best,

FringePhil
User avatar
Sean - Tracker
Site Admin
Posts: 175
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2016 5:42 pm
Location: British Columbia

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi PHK,

It appears that this is a bug - I will mention it to the developers today and get back to you with a more detailed explanation later on.

Thanks for the feedback and best regards,
Sean Godley
Technical Writer
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD
Sales: +1 (250) 324-1621
Fax: +1 (250) 324-1623
User avatar
Sean - Tracker
Site Admin
Posts: 175
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2016 5:42 pm
Location: British Columbia

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi again PHK,

I spoke to one of our developers today and he has provided some more information about the issues that you encountered. The first thing to note is that you can avoid this issue by ensuring that the "Preserve Original Content" box is cleared in the dialog box when you are adding the split to the page:

image.png

The reason that this issue arises if that check box is instead selected is because the original content is preserved (although it is cropped out when the operation is complete). This means that when you select the content in the Content Pane, it is in fact highlighting areas that are cropped out of the visible page area in the document itself:

image(1).png

which I believe is the cause of the initial issue that you were experiencing.

Kind regards,
Sean Godley
Technical Writer
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD
Sales: +1 (250) 324-1621
Fax: +1 (250) 324-1623
User avatar
PHK
User
Posts: 897
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:02 pm

Re: Split Pages and Content Links

Post by PHK »

Thank you, Sean. This is very helpful and I will try it out. This is also helping me learn other better ways of working. For instance, in the link example I provided I now see there was a better way of eliminating the headers and footers than merging first and splitting second and re-merging third. Inasmuch as the headers and footers are all the same areas on all the pages, I should have done the splits first (having selected all the target pages) and then merging. That would have saved a lot of time. The placeholders appear on different places on the pages so that splitting is still probably best done after the initial merge. In other words, it might payoff to think about what one is doing and what the end product should look like before launching in to any of the functions :oops: .
All best,

FringePhil
User avatar
Dimitar - Tracker Supp
Site Admin
Posts: 1778
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:01 am

Split Pages and Content Links

Post by Dimitar - Tracker Supp »

:)
Post Reply