Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"  SOLVED

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vern.zimm
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Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by vern.zimm »

Greetings,

I would greatly appreciate the ability to edit text without having to use the "Edit Text Elements as Blocks" setting. I have seen older forum posts concerning this, or people are confused about it. It seems counter intuitive to me, whereas the rest of your software is so smooth and easy to use.

Text Sample.zip
(56.59 KiB) Downloaded 67 times
Here is a sample of the output I get when I exported a "text block" to MS Word. You see the formatting uses tabs and spaces, some with special extended format after, etc. The text items are individual items in the PDF, as you can see in the screen shot.

In PDF-XChange, the spacing is often done with the "Char Spacing" property... maybe it is 188%, or 243.6%... If I change to a "-", or any other spacing changes, I have to edit the Char Spacing to match some other line that is configured the same way. In the meantime, all the text shifts around and scares me because maybe I can't fix it :shock:

Possibly you could allow to edit the text "Content" item, or a right click on the individual (non-block) text to enter edit mode?

If I edited in that way, it would be useful to have some way to align the new text to others around it, guide lines or tabs? I'm not sure how that is done when editing/creating a PDF...

Please let me know if anything is unclear. I can't really give you the original because it is company property etc.

Thanks,
Vernon.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello vern.zimm,

Thank you for the detailed post, and I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. While we understand where you are coming from, and are aware that there is some demand for this capability, we also know that the current handling of the "edit text elements as blocks" feature itself is somewhat lacking (and more than a bit confusing). We do not currently have plans to allow editing while in this mode due to the many complications that can arise from it, at least not until we work out the other kinks with the function.

I apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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vern.zimm
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by vern.zimm »

I understand. I hope you can find a solution that is easy to implement and use. I was trying to use Nuance (my company owns site license), but it is so bad.

The comment feature (in PDF XChange) is really great, one of the best features, functionally, of the whole program. Maybe it is possibly to tie into that for document text editing as well, without having to write as much code? I don't know how that would have to interface with the PDF format though. Maybe comments are easy to stick on and place, but document text has more strict layout requirements?

Anyway, good luck, and I look forward to what you can do for this issue.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Vern,
Thank you for understanding, we will try our best to make the most of this feature in due time.

Unfortunately the PDF format dictates that Comments and base content must remain entirely different objects, so we cannot tie them together as you have described. We are looking at a new tool that would be able to select comments *or* base content, not necessarily at the same time, but both would be selectable (and possible editable) without changing to a different tool. This item is still in the early discussion phase however and I cannot say with certainty that it will be implemented just yet.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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vern.zimm
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by vern.zimm »

Thanks Daniel,

I only meant it would be great if you could re-use the same (programming) code that you have already written for comment objects. They would stay separate entities in the file, but would have the same UI functionality.

I have dug more into this, and not only is there the issue of "Char Spacing", there is also "Paragraph Options" formatting. It changes line-by-line sometimes to make each line spaced correctly. I can't be sure this would happen in all PDFs, but for this report it is a nightmare. Since the blocks of text build sequentially, one change anywhere cascades down.

I have attached a portion of a report in original .pdf format. Try editing things inside the text block. That one is fairly simple, but you can see how badly it functions. When it has other things in the table like notes/dividers (generated from the original program) it gets much worse.

Thanks,
Vernon.
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Text Blocks Example.pdf
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Vern,

Unfortunately the longstanding programming rule of "if its already done, dont do it again" doesn't apply in this instance, as we could not simply use the existing code to accomplish this. A whole new set of functions needs to be built from the ground up to accommodate such a feature. I do agree, it would be great if we could do that, but in this case it is simply not possible to go that route.

Anyhow, Thank you for the sample document. I am sorry to say that there is nothing we can do in this scenario at the moment. Another item we are looking into is a "table editor" function that may be able to detect tables that are formatted in a certain way (this one may fit the requirements). At the moment it is not something that is in active development and it will most likely be a relatively long wait before we can even confirm if and how it will truly be implemented.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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vern.zimm
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by vern.zimm »

Daniel, thank you again for your in-depth reply. I think I am right in saying this report is a very non-standard use of the formatting available in PDF format. It would appear that there doesn't exist a "table" element in the format, so it is built from the lesser elements, and loses all coherence of the original table as a whole. In that case you(all) would have to reverse engineer to get the original table object. I understand that it would be a very complicated task.

Also, I think I need to upload another example! I deleted pages and trimmed content from the original, and I think PDF-XChange altered or tuned formatting when it saved? I'm on my home computer, same Win10 PDFX 8.0.336 and now I don't see character spacing values. I will confirm at work and give you a "real" example later today.

Editing these reports was one of the main reasons I purchased the software and it is basically unusable. I propose a compromise of a sort... work on least effort <-> best function changes with me instead of re-writing whole text-block code. I can give you very specific issues that seem to me to be least complicated to resolve. If you can get me custom builds I will give you prompt feedback.
  • There is a max value in Properties (pane)->Text Properties->Character->Char Spacing of 1000%. Some areas of my report use higher values. Can that limit be increased?
  • Properties (pane)->Text Properties->Paragraph->Text Alignment appears to be broken for "Justify" but not "Left". It appears correctly as "Justify" when I use Ctrl-H->Paragraph Options window.
  • Add full "Paragraph Options" from window to "Text Properties" pane. I can't easily compare the 8 "Indentation" and "Spacing" fields when I have to open and close the "Paragraph Option" window.
  • Make better use of the "Content" pane for text objects... A "Text:" object has |> opener and single sub-lines of text inside. Selecting a sub-line of text shows only the "Page Content Properties" pane, not the "Text Properties" pane. Similarly "Paragraph Options" and Ctrl-H are not available. Moving sub-lines of text out of order causes some interesting changes, such as creating new editable text blocks, but it is incoherent what is happening or why.
I appreciate your time, so please let me know if you need a screen-shot or etc if something is unclear.

Thanks,
Vernon.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Vern,

Glad I could offer some insight, I will look forward to your next sample before I begin more testing, so that I can do it all at once, please do send it over when possible.

We appreciate the offer for input there, however we do have our own in-house testers, and countless clients such as yourself offering feedback on the forums to gather this information. We do not offer test builds to clients unless there is a very specific issue being targeted for that build, and we are unable to reproduce it in house, so we will have to respectfully decline that offer.

Beyond that, our process for what to implement and work on next is not quite as simple as "least effort <-> best function" as we have so many clients, and some of them will benefit from different changes, no one person can know what all of these may be. Something that highly benefits accountants, may be completely useless to a designer, while something that benefits that same designer could also be somewhat helpful to Teachers.

We need to factor in effort, time investment, availability of Dev team resources, user demand, overall functionality, and more. Simply put, there is much more to consider to any issue, and as we have seen here, something that seems to us like it would be Easy or Difficult to implement, may be just the opposite when presented to the Dev team who know the inner workings of the software.

As for your list there:

- Currently the maximum value for character spacing cannot be increased further, we may look at this again in the future, but at the moment it will not be increasing.

- Could you clarify what is broken about Justify in these cases? It seems to work correctly on this end, assuming there are not already other issues with the text being affected. Screenshots and a sample document would be helpful.

- I am looking into the paragraph options inquiry with the Dev team, but am fairly certain that there is a reason this is not already the case, and it may not be possible. Regardless I have made a feature request for this item, that we can follow up on later.
RT#5087: RE: Offer all ""paragraph options" when editing text or selecting text object

- The Content pane shows what exists in the document, how it exists in the document. If there are multiple separate entries under a text header, that means that some of the content is actually separated from the main body, or has its own location information. In a well formatted document, these items will usually be one to a line of text, like so:
image.png
If you could send that document, and some extra details about the "justify" issue there, we'll get started on those as soon as we can.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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vern.zimm
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by vern.zimm »

I am not able to read/reply to everything at the moment, but here is a better example file, and also a screenshot of the "Justify" missing from Text Properties pane issue...
Attachments
Text Alignment missing for Justify.jpg
Original Text Example.pdf
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"  SOLVED

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Vern,

Thank you for the document there, I have managed to reproduce this, Sorry for the delay! A ticket has been made for this issue as well:
RT#5090: Justify setting is not reflected in properties pane

I cannot say when this will be resolved, as usual, but we will do our best to see it fixed soon. For now at least you know you can look at it in the paragraph options menu.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
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Jensen Head
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by Jensen Head »

I hope I correctly understood the problem discussed above in this thread. And it seems to apply to me as well. I am currently translating a live PDF with hundreds of text blocks per page. These blocks are located close to each other, or even overlap. When I turn off "Edit Text Elements as Blocks" [1] the text blocks are displayed properly, separately from each other. However, when this feature is enabled, up to ten mergings of adjacent two or three objects occur on each page. I have to remove the superfluous from each such merged block, and create new blocks to replace the "merged" ones.

[1] "Creates virtual text blocks and enables their selection/editing, instead of selecting individual text items".
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Screenshot_2022-12-07_12-41-06.png
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Allow editing of text without using "Edit Text Elements as Blocks"

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Jensen Head,

We suspect that this problem might be related to the same settings that is causing your other issue:
viewtopic.php?t=39630
So can you please test if that has any effect, and let us know - in either, or if you prefer even in both topics? :)

Kind regards,
Stefan
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