Highlighting text and commenting it on the same notecard

[isma]

Hello,
I was wondering if it is possible to highlight some text in a pdf (this creates a dedicated notecard that is locked ?) and then, in the same notecard be able to enter some comments, keyword or title.
Best regards
Ismaïl

[Jon]

We're going one better. In the next update you'll be able to highlight text and create an editable notecard at the same time (with a new quote feature where the highlighted text will be indented and rendered in gray).

Jon
Sonny Software

[isma]

This is really really good news !
Does it mean that this notecard will also be clickable and connected to the corresponding highlighted text ?
Many thanks for the support and the very quick answer
Ismaïl

[Jon]

A click, no. I tried to do this by using the page number (@nnn) to go to the corresponding page, but in way too many cases (all I had) the actual page number in the journal (e.g. p. 1323) was not what the PDF had internally. Internally, it had the relative page number (e.g. p. 5), so this approach broke. You can still show the highlight as a locked note that links to the highlight with a click, but the editable notecard is unanchored. On the brighter side, if a notecard has quoted text, right-clicking and choosing "Find in PDF" will take you too it using that text (which is immutable in the PDF). So a right-click will take you to the highlighted text.

Jon
Sonny Software

[isma]

Thanks for the answer
The thing that is not clear to me is how do software like Sente or Paper manage to do so ? I mean with Sente for instance you can click on a note (containing quotation and comments...) and go to the corresponding highlighted part. Is it because they have a dedicated annotation pdf system ?

Isma

[dave83]

Jon,

This is a very welcome addition. This seemly simple addition greatly improves the process of reviewing documents; making it a natural extension of my worflow.

I agree with Isma on the ability to select (click) a note and go to the applicable section within the pdf. This capability gives a quick way to return to the document when I am reviewing notes and helps put the highlighted section and my notes back into context.

Cheers,
Dave

[Jon]

You can click on any note that is tied to an annotation (e.g. highlighted text or a PDF note). For notes you create in Bookends (i.e. that are stored in the database, not the PDF) that's not possible because they are unrelated. However, as I said, you can use the Find in PDF hierarchical menu option to do exactly that if the text in the note matches the text in the PDF (which is what you get when you use the new quoted text feature). So it's a right-click instead of a click.

Jon
Sonny Software

[isma]

Jon,
I just installed bookends 12.6.1 and I really appreciate the new "quoted pdf from selection" function. To be perfect in my opinion though, it should also be a bookends notecard (without having to convert it ) and also, the quotation should be highlighted !
Many thanks for the great support
Ismaïl

[Jon]

That's what "Highlight selected text and make Bookends notecard" is for.

There are simply too many combinations of PDF annotations and Bookends database additions to offer all. If you want all three (PDF note, Bookends notecard, highlighted text) you can do that, it just take two keyboard shortcuts instead of one.

Jon
Sonny Software

[isma]

I 've tried this solution. The "problem" is that it will duplicate the notecard /quoted pdf annotation in the notecard pane, right ?

[Jon]

You can turn off "Show Highlighted PDF Text as Notecards".

Basically, Bookends tries to balance two different ways of maintaining PDF annotations:

1. Resident in the PDF itself (and transportable to any other app).
2. Imported into the Bookends database, and available like any other reference metadata.

The ability of show PDF annotations as virtual notecards (viewable in the note stream but not editable) let's you have both simultaneously, but of course you can have duplicate notecards. This does not cause a problem, just some clutter, and you can turn that off as I noted above. Having both sorts of notes has its advantages, because the virtual notecards actual know that it holds an annotation and will take you to it in the PDF if you click on it, whereas the Bookends text is just text and doesn't even know it came from a PDF annotation (although if it's a quote you can now go to it directly with right-click -> Find in PDF).

Jon
Sonny Software

[isma]

You can turn off "Show Highlighted PDF Text as Notecards".

This does not seem to work with pdf notes created with ^cmd Q

[Jon]

No, that's only for highlighted text. PDF notes are always shown (and they are editable from the note stream -- the notes are kept in the PDF -- and that is why they are not shown with the lock symbol in the note stream).

Jon
Sonny Software