Hello. I am working on creating an academic research/paper writing workflow. I find it very convenient to annotate pdf files and via the xml file found in the docdata directory, retrieve the annotations via another application. To speed the process though, it would be very nice to be able to select some text, copy it and then be able to paste directly into a note for future retrieval using other applications. Reproducible: Always
I'm not sure i understand what you mean, can you please clarify this it would be very nice to be able to select some text (where are you selecting it?), copy it and then be able to paste directly into a note (paste into a note where?) for future retrieval using other applications.
Selected text will be in the body of the pdf. The destination would be an annotation pinned to the beginning of the text.
I don't see what you mean really, isn't that something you can already do?
Select text, right click and I can copy as text or as image. Add an option right here to copy to annotation and insert the note at the beginning of the selection. Saves several steps for the user.
Saves 2 steps and increases the number of entries in the menu, every entry you add there you make the menu harder to use because people get lost in what they want to choose from the menu. Personally I don't think your use case is that used that makes sense to add a new entry in the menu. Thanks for your opinion though :-)
No worries. I was trying to work towards the same goal as Docear, but using the much easier path of extracting the data required from okular's unique xml file. I guess I'll just wait for them to complete their standards based project and use their tools to get the work done. It will be interesting to see which pdf reader they choose to use. Not many of them are cross platform and support the required two way communication. I was considering requesting a keyboard shortcut instead of a menu entry, but okular's unusual method of copying text precludes that.
How is our method of copying text unusual?
It was the first thing I noticed about the application. The "normal" procedure in most textual applications, like web browsers, word-processors and text editors is to be able to highlight text with the selection tool and then use the standard Ctrl-C or r-click, copy. Normally when a user releases the mouse button or the shift key when using the keyboard to select text, the selected text just sits there waiting for the next step. It is totally a niche use case, only applicable to maybe a couple million students and researchers around the world, but being able to select text and have it immediately injected into an annotation would be very handy. Having the annotation easily accessible via the xml file, as it currently is, is brilliant for my application. I am trying to put together something that makes sense, the Docear path is too top heavy IMO. They have chosen to build their workflow around a mindmap and have yet to do much work on the authoring side of the equation, I am working with a programmer's outliner and authoring tool. But I am not a programmer. I am a student. I am working through a python course at the moment, but it will be a long time until I am competent enough to write my own pdf parsing utility. I was overjoyed to find okular and have been using it for a couple of years to highlight text, copy it, paste it into a note annotation (then reformatting it to all be on one line instead of several) and access it in the xml file via the outliner when I am writing the paper that I did the research for. I have been keeping my eyes open for opportunities to improve the situation and was looking ahead to when Docear completes their pdf parser. They are mainly there, but it has been a chore trying to find a reader that meets their needs and they have had to write a pretty hefty interface to their app. This will probably allow them to write a filter for okular to get the info out they want, I was looking for a backdoor. I use linux, cross platform is not my priority and I have no problem using the tools at hand to make this work. The outliner is cross platform and so is okular. I am polishing the workflow and trying to make it as smooth and seamless as possible. This is a minor niggle and it probably isn't worth your time. Someday I will find a way capture annotations, highlighted text and bookmarks right from the pdf. Until then I am just happy to have access to the xml file in the docdata directory in order to get the contents of the notes back out of the pdf. I pretty much don't use the highlighter, as the positional information in the xml file does me no good (but the text would) or the bookmarks, as I have no way of jumping to one on opening the pdf via command line. I'll just keep making do for now. Thanks for taking the time. Chris On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Albert Astals Cid <aacid@kde.org> wrote: > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328026 > > --- Comment #7 from Albert Astals Cid <aacid@kde.org> --- > How is our method of copying text unusual? > > -- > You are receiving this mail because: > You reported the bug. >
(In reply to comment #8) > It was the first thing I noticed about the application. The "normal" > procedure in most textual applications, like web browsers, word-processors > and text editors is to be able to highlight text with the selection tool > and then use the standard Ctrl-C or r-click, copy. Normally when a user > releases the mouse button or the shift key when using the keyboard to > select text, the selected text just sits there waiting for the next step. And don't we select text in the same way?
I cannot select via inserting the cursor between two letters or at the beginning of a sentence and mouse drag or shift-arrow to select the text I want. I must select a block of text, usually including text from the preceding line that I didn't really want and text from beyond the end of the sentence I want as sentences rarely line up with the end of a line. I cannot think of another application that behaves like this. On pasting this text into an editor, or an annotation box, I must also eliminate the line breaks in order to make the text usable in the destination application, which I assume is a function of the block selection method as opposed to the insertion point, drag line by line method.
(In reply to comment #10) > I cannot select via inserting the cursor between two letters or at the > beginning of a sentence and mouse drag or shift-arrow to select the text I > want. Isn't that exactly what tools->Text Selection tool does?
Interesting. All this time I thought that block selection was the only option. That will save a bunch of time. Thanks. Now to go back to scouring the internet for ways to get the highlighted text out of a pdf.