Highlighting Question

bhirota79 · 04-11-2010, 05:10 PM

I have been having difficulty highlighting text in my PDF files. When I try to highlight words or only parts of lines, the entire line or a couple lines end up highlighted. Has anyone else had this problem?

sarah11918 · 04-11-2010, 09:32 PM

Yes, and I've only partially solved it.

If I highlight rather slowly, and without the pen at an angle (ie straight up) then I have a good shot of getting it to be accurate. The problem I usually have is that when I want to highlight starting at a beginning of the line, the end of the line before is also highlighted. At least I've figured out how to erase the highlighting now!

I have a charging issue, so I'm not using the device until I get that resolved, but I was also going to try re-calibrating the e-ink screen. My husband and I both use the device, and I'm left-handed while he's right-handed, so I don't know whether another fresh calibration might help. But, it's definitely my biggest complaint with the unit (other than the charging thing, which I'm working on!). After slowing down and taking great pains to be accurate, I usually don't have to try more than 2-3 times to highlight what I want.

I also have thought about (but haven't had a chance to experiment yet) using a jaggedy up and down motion to highlight more than one line at a time. I still have not yet figured out how to highlight more than a single line of text. (Not including extraneous text from other lines that gets highlighted by mistake.) Sometimes what you want to highlight will span across more than one line, and I don't want there to be 2 different table of content entries for it, ideally.

Thanks for bringing up this issue, because I keep meaning to post about it but have forgotten. I love everything else about the Journal, but the highlighting (and erasing of highlighting) has been a bit of a pain. I tend to take notes more than highlight, but I've started highlighting specifically to create a table of contents in the pdf, so I'd love it if someone has figured out how to do this more gracefully than I have managed to do it.

sarah11918 · 04-11-2010, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by borisb

Try various PDFs, including PDFs you print off of web pages and most should not have this problem.

All my pdfs are printed from web pages, so they definitely do have a (if not this) problem.

sarah11918 · 04-12-2010, 01:36 AM

Will do, Boris.

bhirota79 · 04-12-2010, 04:09 AM

Thank you for the helpful feedback. I had been wondering if it had to do with how the PDFs were parsing the text. My files too are all from the web. They are mostly journal articles that I am reviewing for my work. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there may be a workaround for this in the near future. Thank you again.

bhirota79 · 04-12-2010, 12:01 PM

Hi Boris, I am not actually converting the web pages to PDFs. These are journal articles that are provided in PDF format that I download from the websites. Most of them are scientific articles. I am not sure what program they are using for constructing their files.

soilwork · 04-12-2010, 01:18 PM

I had a similar problem with some PDFs and I got the following response once I send the PDF.

Quote:

The device currently tries to select a whole word if it is touched rather than just the location touched. Accordingly, if the eDGe does not recognize spaces in the line, it would then select the whole line. When looking at this PDF, this is the case.

We are looking into adding in an option to allow the user to select only characters rather words.

Hopefully, the feature will be added soon.

bhirota79 · 04-12-2010, 07:32 PM

As I continue to work with my documents, I notice that I have more success with PDF files with single columns of text. I more able to highlight only the words that I want in that setting. However, with two columns of text (as is the format for most scientific/medical journals) I have extraneous text being highlighted. I could touch one word and end up with the entire line or more highlighted.

I look forward to any fixes enTourage can come up with.

04-11-2010, 05:10 PM	#1
bhirota79 Edge User	Highlighting Question I have been having difficulty highlighting text in my PDF files. When I try to highlight words or only parts of lines, the entire line or a couple lines end up highlighted. Has anyone else had this problem?

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04-11-2010, 09:32 PM	#2
sarah11918 Edge User	Yes, and I've only partially solved it. If I highlight rather slowly, and without the pen at an angle (ie straight up) then I have a good shot of getting it to be accurate. The problem I usually have is that when I want to highlight starting at a beginning of the line, the end of the line before is also highlighted. At least I've figured out how to erase the highlighting now! I have a charging issue, so I'm not using the device until I get that resolved, but I was also going to try re-calibrating the e-ink screen. My husband and I both use the device, and I'm left-handed while he's right-handed, so I don't know whether another fresh calibration might help. But, it's definitely my biggest complaint with the unit (other than the charging thing, which I'm working on!). After slowing down and taking great pains to be accurate, I usually don't have to try more than 2-3 times to highlight what I want. I also have thought about (but haven't had a chance to experiment yet) using a jaggedy up and down motion to highlight more than one line at a time. I still have not yet figured out how to highlight more than a single line of text. (Not including extraneous text from other lines that gets highlighted by mistake.) Sometimes what you want to highlight will span across more than one line, and I don't want there to be 2 different table of content entries for it, ideally. Thanks for bringing up this issue, because I keep meaning to post about it but have forgotten. I love everything else about the Journal, but the highlighting (and erasing of highlighting) has been a bit of a pain. I tend to take notes more than highlight, but I've started highlighting specifically to create a table of contents in the pdf, so I'd love it if someone has figured out how to do this more gracefully than I have managed to do it.

04-12-2010, 04:09 AM	#5
bhirota79 Edge User	Thank you for the helpful feedback. I had been wondering if it had to do with how the PDFs were parsing the text. My files too are all from the web. They are mostly journal articles that I am reviewing for my work. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there may be a workaround for this in the near future. Thank you again.

04-12-2010, 12:01 PM	#6
bhirota79 Edge User	Hi Boris, I am not actually converting the web pages to PDFs. These are journal articles that are provided in PDF format that I download from the websites. Most of them are scientific articles. I am not sure what program they are using for constructing their files.

04-12-2010, 07:32 PM	#8
bhirota79 Edge User	As I continue to work with my documents, I notice that I have more success with PDF files with single columns of text. I more able to highlight only the words that I want in that setting. However, with two columns of text (as is the format for most scientific/medical journals) I have extraneous text being highlighted. I could touch one word and end up with the entire line or more highlighted. I look forward to any fixes enTourage can come up with.

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