Post by balmydrizzle » Fri Mar 22, 2019 6:31 am
I run into some problems when editing textbox and hope some experienced people can help me:
1.How to prevent/disable text block auto merged?
I like the textboxs to be indenpedent so that I can edit them one by one. Say I originally edit text blocks A & B.Some other day when I open the same file, I find text blocks A & B become one large text block and make editing them become harder since they have different text styles.
2.Sometimes, bold texts lose bold when turn them to italic.
One example is: I edit an English pdf file and try to translate it to Chinese version (I'm using MicrosoftJenHei Chinese font). On some text block, I change English text to chinese text and make them bold. It looks fine with bold effect on screen. But when I change the text to italic, the bold view is gone. If I disable the italic, the bold view is back. Why does this happen? How can I avoid it?
3. Differnt text blocks with same font face have different effect of bold and italic
This is actually another issue following previous issue. A workaround I use for previous problem is: I find another text block A whose font is MicrosoftJenHei but have both bold and italic view. So I copy some text from text block A and copy them into another text block B who has problem of previous issue. Then I delete original text and retype them following the just-copied text from text block A. In the way, I keep the bold and italic view well again. But why text blocks A &B, both are in same font, have different effects when bold and italic existing together?
4.Can I just paste text into another text block without its original text style?
I copy some text from text block A and paste them into another text block B. But it brings in the original text style from text block A and make the txt style in text block B a mess. How can I only paste the text only? The current workaround I use is: Pasting in to text editor, then copy from it and paste to target text block.
Thanks for any helpful information.
Site Admin Posts: 6815 Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 9:21 pm Contact:Post by Will - Tracker Supp » Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:45 pm
Thanks for the post!
1.How to prevent/disable text block auto merged?
I like the textboxs to be indenpedent so that I can edit them one by one. Say I originally edit text blocks A & B.Some other day when I open the same file, I find text blocks A & B become one large text block and make editing them become harder since they have different text styles.
I'm afraid that there isn't any way to control this at this time.2.Sometimes, bold texts lose bold when turn them to italic.
One example is: I edit an English pdf file and try to translate it to Chinese version (I'm using MicrosoftJenHei Chinese font). On some text block, I change English text to chinese text and make them bold. It looks fine with bold effect on screen. But when I change the text to italic, the bold view is gone. If I disable the italic, the bold view is back. Why does this happen? How can I avoid it?
3. Differnt text blocks with same font face have different effect of bold and italic
This is actually another issue following previous issue. A workaround I use for previous problem is: I find another text block A whose font is MicrosoftJenHei but have both bold and italic view. So I copy some text from text block A and copy them into another text block B who has problem of previous issue. Then I delete original text and retype them following the just-copied text from text block A. In the way, I keep the bold and italic view well again. But why text blocks A &B, both are in same font, have different effects when bold and italic existing together?
I've not personally encountered these issues before and it's likely that this is specific to the files/fonts. Can you please send an example file for us to test with?
4.Can I just paste text into another text block without its original text style?
I copy some text from text block A and paste them into another text block B. But it brings in the original text style from text block A and make the txt style in text block B a mess. How can I only paste the text only? The current workaround I use is: Pasting in to text editor, then copy from it and paste to target text block.
I'm afraid that this isn't currently possible, but there is already a feature request in our system for this (RT-2881). I've asked for an update to see if there has been any movement here.
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.
Will Travaglini
Tracker Support (Europe)
Tracker Software Products Ltd.
http://www.tracker-software.com
Post by Jensen Head » Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:06 am
balmydrizzle wrote: ↑ Fri Mar 22, 2019 6:31 am 1.How to prevent/disable text block auto merged?Will - Tracker Supp wrote: ↑ Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:45 pm I'm afraid that there isn't any way to control this at this time.
balmydrizzle wrote: ↑ Fri Mar 22, 2019 6:31 am 4.Can I just paste text into another text block without its original text style?
For this I use the Yandex Punto Switcher application (having blocked all network connections for it). It has the ability to configure hotkeys for the "Paste text without formatting" action.
User Posts: 2410 Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:10 pmPost by Willy Van Nuffel » Wed Feb 08, 2023 1:13 pm
The "Paste as Plain Text"-command has been introduced since 04-04-2019 with the 8.0.330.0 release.
It is available after Copy and a right-mouse-click while editing text.
There is no default shortcut for it, but you can assign a key-combination if you like.
Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan » Wed Feb 08, 2023 1:23 pm
User Posts: 11 Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:17 amPost by SJH » Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:20 pm
> 1.How to prevent/disable text block auto merged?
>> I'm afraid that there isn't any way to control this at this time.
I *despise* 'Text Block' auto merging with a passion
It seems that a certain separation distance between 'Text Blocks', as
well as a certain positioning, or dimensions of the two blocks w.r.t. each
other, avoids merging. If someone knows the exact separation distance,
juxtaposition, etc that avoids text block auto merging, I would be grateful
for the information.
One work around I am using, is to place a 'Text Box' (comment) between
two text blocks. The 'Text Box' is just a replacement for the text that would
normally be part of one of the 'Text Blocks'. It only serves as a distance
separator for the text blocks that I don't want merged. Be aware that
the 'Text Box' does not stop a merge. If you move one of the 'Text Blocks'
over the 'Text Box' towards the other, the 'Text Blocks' will merge. The
'Text Box' just fills, and demarks the empty space, required to avoid a
merge. It may work, but it is just one more time waster you don't need
While 'Undo' is your friend, you must be scrupulously vigilant, with every
'Text Block' move, so a 'Text Box' merge doesn't go down the chain.
Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan » Mon Apr 03, 2023 12:16 pm
Thanks you sharing your emotions, however out text block grouping is going to stay as it is for now. We are constantly working on improvements but I do not have any news at the moment regarding this text grouping.
We do also appreciate you sharing the solution you have found, and thank you for sharing it with the other forum members.
Kind regards,
Stefan
Post by SJH » Wed Apr 12, 2023 1:42 am
> Thanks you sharing your emotions..
Mock emotion but. Ah yes, all those hours of recreating text blocks, which were blown to smithereens by a, too close, encounter.. what larks. I should also have underlined the OP's comment, that you may think you got away with a close escape, only to find out, when you reopen the file, (and can't back out), you didn't.
> I do not have any news at the moment regarding this text grouping.
I'm certain, that the brilliant developers could, give us an option to turn off text block merging, with a mere, snap of the fingers. That they don't, makes it clear, that they have higher priority issues, to snap their fingers at.
Apparently only the OP and I, care about this issue. Which made me wonder why other's didn't find this behavior as insidious, as I. So I had a fresh look at text block merging and discovered that the horrific behavior it used to exhibit is gone I won't go into detail, but it is *far* easier to recover from a merge, today, than it was, as I remember, from the past. I would still turn auto-merging, off, if I could. Personally, if I want to merge text, I'll do it deliberately, with cut and paste, and not have the aggravation of merging occurring, by a chance proximity. But I now understand why no-one else cares and why it's a non-issue for the developers.
> We do also appreciate you sharing the solution you have found.
To say that reminiscence, was a 4th rate kludge would have been way too kind. In the same vein, I also used red rectangles, around highly formatted text blocks, to indicate the danger zone.
That being said, while investigating text block merging, I believe I found an inclusion, that makes individual text blocks, immune from merging. Need to refine/test a bit more, but maybe an actual workaround?
Thoroughly enjoy your good nature and sense of humour
SJH
Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel » Wed Apr 12, 2023 4:13 pm
I am glad that you understand there are some priorities here. We do plan to improve how text editing works in the future, but some aspects are required to some degree, automatic forming of text "blocks" is one such issue. To really show why this is important, lets take a look at a larger file which many people may be accessing on the daily, such as the Adobe JS API manual: http://dev.datalogics.com/cookbook/docu . erence.pdf
In brief, PDF is not a "flow based" format, it is strictly coordinate based, and as such, each individual object on the page is unrelated to those nearby it, and editing one thing does not have a direct impact on the others. Editing "as blocks" is something every modern PDF editing application (that i have encountered) has enabled by default, and with good reason.
In the case or the example file above, the issue is not quite as pronounced as I have seen it in some clients personal files (which I do not keep copies of, nor could i share), but each line of text is often broken into multiple separate text objects, in some cases, each word, number, or even individual letters, can be its own separate text "object". If you were to try and edit without text as blockes enabled, you would quickly realize that there is no capacity for word wrapping, no ability to influence the objects around the one word, or letter you have selected. You can see this happening in the "quickbars" link on page 35 of the reference manual linked above, please also see my attached GIF (click to play animation):
If this handling were the default, we would not be a PDF software with a name that was proliferated enough to lead a successful business. I understand if your use case is one where these form of editing is useful, but it is not something which we can make a default, and you will for the forseeable future need to manually enable this option for the moments when you feel a need to move text without bringing along any "nearby" blocks that might have incorrectly been assumed to be "close enough" to count as a single entity.