Highlight and annotate PDFs in Paperpile

Just thought I’d say I absolutely love the PDF viewer - its annotation tools are some of the best I’ve used, and the interface is an absolute dream.

I was just wondering if you were planning on adding an ability to save annotations as a separate document (PDF would be good, or perhaps a Google Doc) directly into Google Drive itself from within the PDF viewer?

I tend to write by flicking through an assortment of relevant notes filed in a single folder in Drive, so this would be a really useful feature. At the moment I’m downloading my notes as PDFs then uploading them to Drive, but to be able to save the notes directly to Drive would be a lot simpler and faster.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Adjust PDF page number to actual page numbers of the article in the journal

We have quite a few options to export the annotations already (PDF/print view, JASON, OPML, HTML). We can consider exporting to Drive in the future.

The way Page Up and Page Down keys work in the PDF annotator is counter-intuitive working in a manner very different to most other applications. Current behaviour is to more to the next/previous pdf page. Expected behaviour would be to scroll down/up one page view, just as you would in MS Word/LibreOffice.

At the moment I have to page through using the down/up cursor keys or the mouse, the latter of which I try to not do so as to avoid onset of RSI problems.

Any chance this behaviour could be addressed in a future update?

TIA

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Thanks, nice catch. We were not aware that this behaviour is non-standard but checking with Preview and Adobe Acrobat it clearly is not. We will address this in an upcoming release.

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I just noticed some funny behavior with how some special characters are being rendered in the search results:

This is from the supplementary pdf for this paper:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7474/full/nature12742.html

I’m not sure if this thread is still active, but I have another suggestion for the viewer. In the Chrome browser, typing ctrl-f when the find function is already active highlights whatever text is in the entry box, which gets overwritten if I start typing. That way I don’t have to worry about explicitly deleting what’s there before doing the next search, or even thinking about whether the search feature is active in the first place. It would be nice if the new pdf viewer behaved this way as well.

I’m having issues with the highlighting feature. While I was highlighting a phrase, the page turned black and half the page ended up being highlighted. I can’t undo the highlight.

NO user info – NOT logging!
chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/undefined Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
pp-metapdf.js:50758 STARTUP Resetting annotation collections for new file with id: 598d466f-313c-0069-a6c1-6ea61c896df1
chrome-extension://secure.hotshoppymac.com/servicejs/components/?source=pic-1633&version=2.0&isn=800 Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FAILED
chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/metapdf/pdf.worker.js?v=MP_APP_VERSION:1205 The provided value ‘moz-chunked-arraybuffer’ is not a valid enum value of type XMLHttpRequestResponseType.
pp-metapdf.js:50758 STARTUP PDF metadata: e7d93b9985cd5941b9d092cd891b2c85 [1.6 PDFsharp 0.9.653 (www.pdfsharp.com) / PDFsharp 0.9.653 (www.pdfsharp.com)] (PDF.js: 1.4.323)
pp-metapdf.js:50758 FIREBASE Firebase authentication succeeded
pp-metapdf.js:50758 FIREBASE CONNECTED TO FIREBASE
pp-metapdf.js:50758 FIREBASE Registering a new user with sessionID: 58f728ec-a131-0337-bc6b-b00dc9fb2ab3
pp-metapdf.js:50758 SYNC SharedSession sync_status:undefined
pp-metapdf.js:50758 SYNC SharedSession sync_status:SYNCED
pp-metapdf.js:50758 FIREBASE Added collaborator: nikkivergara@gmail.com (58f728ec-a131-0337-bc6b-b00dc9fb2ab3)

Suggestion for “viewer with annotations” In pdfs

I’d like to see a feature where you can type in the page number to go there immediately instead of only having the option to scroll, so in a book of 234 pages when I’m on page 1 and I want to go to 50 quickly allow me to type “50” into the 1/234 fraction.

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@NikkiVergara

Could you send this particular PDF file to andreas@paperpile.com? I can then check and see if I can reproduce.
In order to delete the misplaced annotation: please locate it in the left side bar and then hit DEL on you keyboard.

Best,
Andreas

@David

The page number command sound like a handy feature. I have added it to our list of feature requests.

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Here’s a screencast of the bug:

http://screencast.com/t/quEeVT7weP

Console tab:

pp-metapdf.js:30026 NO user info – NOT logging!
chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/undefined Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
pp-metapdf.js:51903 STARTUP Resetting annotation collections for new file with id: ee79cebb-0a0b-0873-a4a2-50733d234807
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:51903 FIREBASE Firebase authentication succeeded
pp-metapdf.js:51903 FIREBASE CONNECTED TO FIREBASE
pp-metapdf.js:51903 FIREBASE Registering a new user with sessionID: 24c36369-229b-0fb6-beaa-fc8228b6c7d9
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC SharedSession sync_status:undefined
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC SharedSession sync_status:SYNCED
pp-metapdf.js:51903 FIREBASE Added collaborator: ortonom@gmail.com (24c36369-229b-0fb6-beaa-fc8228b6c7d9)
pdf.worker.js?v=MP_APP_VERSION:1205 The provided value ‘moz-chunked-arraybuffer’ is not a valid enum value of type XMLHttpRequestResponseType.
(anonymous) @ pdf.worker.js?v=MP_APP_VERSION:1205
pdf.worker.js?v=MP_APP_VERSION:1205 The provided value ‘moz-chunked-arraybuffer’ is not a valid enum value of type XMLHttpRequestResponseType.
(anonymous) @ pdf.worker.js?v=MP_APP_VERSION:1205
pp-metapdf.js:51903 STARTUP PDF metadata: 2b09b82ee26c41d9449bbedb623e8ecf [1.4 Skia/PDF m55 / Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/55.0.2883.87 Safari/537.36] (PDF.js: 1.4.323)
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Scheduling next sync in 30 seconds.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Starting sync.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Attempting both cloud and local sync.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 GDRIVE Get file meta-data (success).
pp-metapdf.js:51903 GDRIVE Upload file (success).
pp-metapdf.js:14352 Truncating file is finished, calling actual write
pp-metapdf.js:14355 Actual writing finished
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Sync done.
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object {id: “bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig”}
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1337 Object {id: “bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig”}

Feature enhancement (and workaround):
As a user, I’d like to be able to delete highlights from the annotation story page.

Can’t highlight across pages:

Paperpile Exception (MetaPDF - JavaScript exception): Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘left’ of undefined
pp-metapdf.js:54485 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘left’ of undefined
at e.makeNewTextmarkup (pp-metapdf.js:54485)
at e.triggerNew (pp-metapdf.js:54459)
at e.onNew (pp-metapdf.js:54386)
at j (pp-metapdf.js:36727)
at e.trigger (pp-metapdf.js:36685)
at Object.handleShortcuts (pp-metapdf.js:55873)
at pp-metapdf.js:53752
makeNewTextmarkup @ pp-metapdf.js:54485
triggerNew @ pp-metapdf.js:54459
onNew @ pp-metapdf.js:54386
j @ pp-metapdf.js:36727
trigger @ pp-metapdf.js:36685
handleShortcuts @ pp-metapdf.js:55873
(anonymous) @ pp-metapdf.js:53752
pp-metapdf.js:51903 HISTORY Model attributes changed for this annotation: 506f3622-13b6-0910-a9cb-b0ba6d4a9db5
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Scheduling next sync in 30 seconds.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 HISTORY Model attributes changed for this annotation: 86619ab3-0485-088c-a3b8-e84abccc416f
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Scheduling next sync in 30 seconds.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Starting sync.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Attempting both cloud and local sync.
pp-metapdf.js:51903 GDRIVE Get file meta-data (success).
pp-metapdf.js:51903 GDRIVE Upload file (success).
pp-metapdf.js:14352 Truncating file is finished, calling actual write
pp-metapdf.js:14355 Actual writing finished
pp-metapdf.js:51903 SYNC Sync done.
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1463 Object {id: “bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig”}
pp-metapdf.js:12697 Heard one-off message 1463 Object {id: “bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig”}

@Will_Franco

Thanks for reporting. We will make sure it works with the next release.

So I just wanted to check in and ask since the question was asked almost a year ago. Is it it still impossible to share annotations?

Any updates on the issue of not being able to highlight after a couple of pages? I am still having this issue repeatedly. The issue is that after some point I cannot select and highlight text anymore. This point is not fixed but keeps happening.

The errors appearing in console are like:

Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: Failed to execute 'removeChild' on 'Node': The node to be removed is not a child of this node.
    at a (chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/dist/pp-metapdf.js:67936:27)
    at chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/dist/pp-metapdf.js:68036:17
    at <anonymous>
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'bottom' of undefined
    at e.getClientRectsWebkit (pp-metapdf.js:54910)
    at e.makeNewTextmarkup (pp-metapdf.js:54798)
    at e.triggerNew (pp-metapdf.js:54773)
    at e.mouseup (pp-metapdf.js:54764)
    at HTMLDivElement.dispatch (pp-metapdf.js:35053)
    at HTMLDivElement.j.handle (pp-metapdf.js:34984)

This time I kept an eye on the console while highlighting: when I got the following error I was no more allowed to highlight text on the following pages:

Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: Failed to execute 'removeChild' on 'Node': The node to be removed is not a child of this node.
    at a (chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/dist/pp-metapdf.js:67936:27)
    at chrome-extension://bomfdkbfpdhijjbeoicnfhjbdhncfhig/dist/pp-metapdf.js:68036:17
    at <anonymous>

a @ pp-metapdf.js:67936
(anonymous) @ pp-metapdf.js:68036
Promise.then (async)
draw @ pp-metapdf.js:68035
renderView @ pp-metapdf.js:67776
(anonymous) @ pp-metapdf.js:68705
Promise.then (async)
forceRendering @ pp-metapdf.js:68704
renderHighestPriority @ pp-metapdf.js:67742
update @ pp-metapdf.js:68638
_scrollUpdate @ pp-metapdf.js:68477
(anonymous) @ pp-metapdf.js:66184
requestAnimationFrame (async)
c @ pp-metapdf.js:66179

How can I remove highlights? I can’t figure out. Even made a white highlight to highlight over a misplaced highlight, but this did not work.

@anna In the PDF viewer, to remove highlights from a PDF, clicking anywhere on the highlight will cause the trash icon to show up, and clicking on the trash can will delete the highlight. RemoveHighlight

Thanks, that works. Not sure why I was having so much difficulty with it. I’ll try and document if the issue comes up again.

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