How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?  SOLVED

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Michael_Swinton2
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How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by Michael_Swinton2 »

How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents? Many thanks for your help.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?  SOLVED

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Michael,

If you wish to copy all comments from Document A to document B, you can simply use the "import/export comments" function on the comment tab. If you instead wish to only move highlights, you will need to open the comment pane (Ctrl+M) and organize by type:
image.png
image.png (28.85 KiB) Viewed 2074 times
Once the list is organized, simply click on the "highlight" section, and use Ctrl+C to copy from document A, then navigate to document B and use Ctrl+V to paste the comments in.

Note that comments, including highlights are location based, not text passage based, so if the text has moved even a small amount, or one of the pages in Document B was removed, both of these processes will have issues that will need to be manually addressed afterwards.

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

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Michael_Swinton2
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by Michael_Swinton2 »

Hello Daniel,

Thank you for your helpful instructions.

I have encountered an error though. When I copy and paste as instructed, highlighting from the first page it got inserted on the third page in "double page continuous" view. I solved it by changing the view to "single page", going to the first page and then pasting it. Not sure if that's a bug. You might want to look into it.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Michael,

Maybe that third page was active at the time you were pasting!
In any case - I see you figured out a solution!

Cheers,
Stefan
Michael_Swinton2
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by Michael_Swinton2 »

I had to use this technique again and noticed that I had to move in both documents to the page where the first highlighting appeared. Only then it was possible to copy it correctly so that all the highlighting were at the right place in the target document.
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David.P
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by David.P »

Hi all,

that's exactly what I see as well. It is necessary to move in the target PDF to the page where the first of the selected comments from the source document should appear.

Only then the copied comments on that page (and on all subsequent pages) are pasted in place on the page where they originally were.

Maybe this can be changed a little such that a bunch of copied comments is pasted to the original page numbers no matter which page of the target document has focus? On the other hand, this would then not allow pasting those comments starting from another page, for example when the target document has more (or less) pages than the source document........

Anyway, the possibility to copy any selection of multiple comments from one document to another is an INVALUABLE feature for PDF collaboration already.

Keep up the great work
David
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:)
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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MedBooster
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by MedBooster »

I'm struggling with this... but with different comment styles; arrows, typewriter, stamps etc...
two elements to this :
a. duplicates don't seem to be recognised? When you copy 200+ elements and a 100 are the same for example, the same will just go on top of the old ones (*but in my case they do not even go on top of each other!) it's kind of strange, maybe it's a bug that has skewed the coordinates of the comments when I combined the documents

b. they are not necessarily pasted to the same page. When I copy all elements there's an inexplicable page difference, both documents have the same quantity of pages , but still the copies (or copy, singular) are not pasted to the same page and there's a difference of 3 pages or something
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Paul - Tracker Supp
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi Guys,

I think the thing to understand here is how paste works, it always uses the currently displayed page as the starting place, then uses the coordinates from that point. This is intentional so as to allow users to paste the content anywhere other than it's original location.

To use paste to get the highlights in the right location yo are always going to have to navigate to the page that needs the first highlight placed, if not it will go on the wrong page. Again, this is by design so you can deliberately paste comments wherever you want.

In order to ensure the pasted comments (critical for highlights) match both the pages and coordinates of the original, do not use copy/paste, but export/import just those comments.
ImportExportHighlights.gif
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
Tracker Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
MedBooster
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by MedBooster »

that makes sense!
So importing comments that are already there (with identical time and date, shape and coordinates) , meaning they're "duplicates" should be recognised right? When you import

edit:
yes that seems to have been the case.

Make sure you add the important function, because for me at least only the export button was there originally when right clicking in the comment pane
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: How do I merge highligtings in two identical documents?

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, MedBooster

The import function will simply import the comments that are listed in the exported file, there is no validation to see if a similar comment already exists in that exact location, so an import could result in you having two overlapping identical highlights, resulting in a slightly darker highlight in that area.

Also, regarding the import comments button, this, as well as the export button, are both present on far right of the comment tab by default, no need to add them to the comments pane specifically.

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

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