Comment export fail

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chrisjj
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Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

1 Create a PDF from clipboard containing one word

2 On that word create a highlight comment saying "hello"
image(1).png
2 Using the Comments pane context menu, export to Word:
image.png
3 View the .DOCX

Expected: "hello"
Observed: blank

How can I get this to work? Thanks.
New Document.pdf
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Last edited by chrisjj on Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, chrisjj

Text annotation comments (such as highlight and underline) can only be exported when the text below them, sharing the same coordinates, are exported as well. Note that right clicking directly on the comment itself will select the comment object, instead of the text behind it. When exporting a selection, you must right click on a section of the text which is not annotated in any way to ensure that the selection is not altered at that stage.

As an example, modify your document to say "Hello World", and only highlight the word "hello" then select both and right click on "world" when you are choosing to export, the highlight will then be retained over hello.

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

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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:02 pm Text annotation comments (such as highlight and underline) can only be exported when the text below them, sharing the same coordinates, are exported as well.
Wow. Please confirm that's down for a fix.
TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:02 pmWhen exporting a selection, you must right click on a section of the text
This command is not from "the text". It is from the comment in Comments.
image.png
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, chrisjj
chrisjj wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:39 pm Wow. Please confirm that's down for a fix.
no, it is not down for a fix becuase it is working as intended. Word is a flow based format where, unlike PDF, text comments such as an underline or highlight cannot exist without text being present for them to exist as a part of.
Meanwhile, in PDF, the comments themselves are not, in any way related to the text, they are a separate entity with no correlation.
As such, the only way to export text annotation comments, is to export the text in the area which the comment is applied to.

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

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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 7:07 pm no, it is not down for a fix becuase it is working as intended.
It is not working as advertised by the UI. I select a Comment, click the command to export selected to Word. Result: comment missing from .DOC.

That cannot possibly be working as intended.
TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 7:07 pmtect comments such as an underline or highlight ...
This comment is one plain simple word.
TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 7:07 pmMeanwhile, in PDF, the comments themselves are not, in any way related to the text
The (main PDF doc) text is irrelevant. This export is in the Comments pane, operating on a selected comment.
TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 7:07 pmAs such, the only way to export text annotation comments, is to export the text in the area which the comment is applied to.
That's not working as advertised on the UI. If you can't fix the behaviour, at least fix the advertisement to avoid wasting the users time. And fix the documentation failure to mention this crippling limitation. Thanks.
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Sean - Tracker
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

Yes, the Export Comments to Word feature works for all types of comments except for the highlight comment feature I'm afraid. Please note that when exporting text underline/strikeout comments, only the underline/strikeout will be exported, and not the text itself (as the text is not part of the comment).

I will mention this problem to the developers today and see if I can get an explanation as to why it is not possible to export highlight comments to MS Word format.

Best regards,
Sean Godley
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Sean - Tracker
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi again Chris,

The developers have had a look at this and provided a workaround - you can use the Snapshot tool to take a snapshot of text and associated highlight comments, then export the snapshot to MS Word:

image.png

The text and the highlights will then be detailed in the output MS Word document and can be edited as desired:

image(1).png

Best regards,
Sean Godley
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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

Sean - Tracker wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:52 pm I will mention this problem to the developers today and see if I can get an explanation as to why it is not possible to export highlight comments to MS Word format.
Thanks but more useful would be news it will be fixed.
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Sean - Tracker
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

The reason that this does not work for Highlight Comments is because there is nothing to export. Highlights are simply a block of colour over text. If you ask PDF-XChange Editor to export this content to Word, then it is problematic because there is essentially nothing to export, other than a block of colour - which has little use when converted to an MS Word document. Note that the underlying text is not included in the export because it is not part of the highlight comment.

Best regards,
Sean Godley
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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

Sean - Tracker wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 8:38 pm The reason that this does not work for Highlight Comments is because there is nothing to export.
Sure there is. There's the text in the comment.

And why else would the UI offer the command for such objects?
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

The text is not part of the comment. The comment is only the overlaying highlight. The UI offers this feature for all comments, and it produces output for all of them except for the Highlight Text comments. If you need to export highlights and the text that is highlighted, then please use the Snapshot tool workaround detailed above.

Best regards,
Sean Godley
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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

> The text is not part of the comment. The comment is only the overlaying highlight.

The UI shows the text as part of the selected comment right here:
image.png
image.png (14.34 KiB) Viewed 1180 times
The export command claims to export selected. I selected the comment and ran the command. It exported nothing. That's a fail, pure and simple.

> If you need to export highlights

Nope. I need to export comments. Just as the UI offers.

> please use the Snapshot tool workaround detailed above.

Please fix the program.
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Sean - Tracker
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

To clarify - the document text is not part of the comment. The comment is only the overlaying highlight. The text contained in comment pop-up notes is not included for any comment type when exporting comments to Word. If you want to include this text, then you should instead use the Export Comments feature detailed here:

https://help.pdf-xchange.com/pdfxe ... le_ed.html

to export the comments to an *.fdf file, which will include the pop-up text when it imports the comments to a subsequent file.

PDF-XChange Editor is not exporting the text highlights to Word format as there is nothing to export in the source document. They are merely text highlights that have no practical use when removed from the text that they are highlighting. By comparison, you can try exporting underline or strikeout annotations to Word. You will find that only the underline/strikeout annotation is exported (without the associated document text or comment pop-up notes), which again have very little purpose when removed from the text to which they apply.

The "Export Selection to Word" feature can be used for document pages, document content, images and a huge range of additional document elements in addition to comments. We appreciate and understand your frustration with finding this unexcepted outcome with exporting one comment type to Word, and we hope that you can understand that as this feature is intended for a huge range of document content, there may be occasional instances where it does not behave completely as one might expect, especially when it is used in a manner that was not one of the primary reasons for its creation.

Kind regards,
Sean Godley
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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

> To clarify - the document text is not part of the comment.

"Document text", now. Thanks but sorry I'm not clarified.

I think my report is clear. "Hello" is missing from the output.

> The text contained in comment pop-up notes is not included for any comment type when exporting comments to Word.

Yes, that's the fail I'm reporting.

> If you want to include this text, then you should instead use the Export Comments feature detailed here:

No Word option seen there.

> PDF-XChange Editor is not exporting the text highlights to Word format as there is nothing to export in the source document.

Sure there is. There is the word "hello".

> They are merely text highlights that have no practical use when removed from the text that they are highlighting.

Untrue. They have plenty of use to me.

> we hope that you can understand that as this feature is intended for a huge range of document content, there may be occasional instances where it does not behave completely as one might expect

The problem is it does not behave as advertised by the UI.

> especially when it is used in a manner that was not one of the primary reasons for its creation.

How on earth a user is supposed to guess what the primary reason for a features creation, I do not know.
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi Chris,

I think there may be a misunderstanding of things here. There is an option in the Editor to "Copy selected text into pop-ups of newly created Text Markup comments":
image.png
Do you have that turned on Chris? With that off Sean is 100% correct that there is not text in the annotation to export, however with that option turned on there IS text in the highlight comment and I personally would expect to see that exported when exporting the comment.

I believe this is the same as here: viewtopic.php?t=39109

I have reached out to the dev concerned and hope to have his feedback after the weekend. Can you confirm Chris, that you are talking about the same thing? I believe that your highlights to export actually DO have text in them and that is what is failing. I am awaiting confirmation from the dev.
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi again Chris,

after further discussions with the development team leader, because I was stuck with the idea in my head that is "Should" be possible to export the highlight annotations with text to Word he asked me what I would expect to see. What I expected to see was the text of the document with the highlight matching what I see on the PDF.

He pointed out that this IS the result when using the Snapshot Tool "work around" to select the highlighted text and export to Word.
image.png
- The colour of the highlight is wrong because the blue I used isn't in Word's colour palette, we will look into that, but the concept is there. Is this (assuming the right highlight colour) what you expect to see on your comment export?

We will make the comment export work like that snapshot export as best we can. Word does not have any kind of text box with a scroll bar that could be used to make the export look like the pop-up, so there is no way we will try and make the export look like the pop-ups and the text that is in them, we will try and make the export look like what is on the page.

This is not considered a high priority and I have no ETA for delivery of this.

I hope that helps.
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

And I just got this from from the dev who does the Export to Word:

I added the ability to convert Highlights and Popups to Word when a user selects only annots. And that should solve the issue.

This will be available Monday. I am thankful to Yevgenii for doing this late on a Friday night for us!

Let's see how that pans out.
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chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

> There is an option in the Editor to "Copy selected text into pop-ups of newly created Text Markup comments":
> Do you have that turned on Chris?

Off (the factory default).
image.png
image.png (3.03 KiB) Viewed 1109 times
And I don't see how that (or the source of the text at all) is material to my reported issue.

> With that off Sean is 100% correct that there is not text in the annotation to export

I won't try to guess what "annotation" means here. I'm reporting using the UI terminology. Comment.

> I believe this is the same as here: https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?t=39109
> Can you confirm Chris, that you are talking about the same thing?

This report is specific to highlight. That link's is specific to sticky note. The two are about the same command.

> I believe that your highlights to export actually DO have text in them

I can't imagine why anyone would believe otherwise. The text is clear in the report's screenshot and sample PDF.
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

> the concept is there. Is this (assuming the right highlight colour) what you expect to see on your comment export?

Not at all. What I expect is as per the report. Expected: "hello".

> We will make the comment export work like that snapshot export as best we can.

I suggest better would be to fix the fail. I.e. make the command do what the UI says it does. As per the report.

> we will try and make the export look like what is on the page.

I cannot imagine why any user would want that.

Please note this command is from the Comments window context menu:
image.png
(I've clarified the original report) not the document page:
image(1).png
each of which appears to have a distinct 'selection'.

I won't try and guess the meaning of that "current selection" as opposed to selection.
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

(Please ignore.... and tell me how to delete a comment for next time.)
chrisjj
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

> I added the ability to convert Highlights and Popups to Word when a user selects only annots. And that should solve the issue.

I'm baffled. The ability is already there on the UI - as per the report. The only problem was it was failing. Do this mean this fail is fixed? I.e. the command now behaves as expected according to the report?
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Sean - Tracker
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

What this post means is that exporting highlight comments, and the content of pop-up notes of all comment types, should be available in the next build.

Kind regards,
Sean Godley
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

I'll take that as a No. Thanks.
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

Hi Chris,

These features are available in the current build, released yesterday.

Kind regards,
Sean Godley
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by chrisjj »

If any user finds this reported fail is remedied in the "current" (latest) build, do please say, Thanks.
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Re: Comment export fail

Post by Sean - Tracker »

:)
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