PDF: Attempting highlight on the same line causes problems

Just to clarify:

  1. This occurs with every single PDF I have, the majority of which are academic journal articles from online journal databases. The problem I note in my OP is reproducible 100% of the time on 100% of PDFs (with text)
  2. This issue does not occur in Preview. In preview I can highlight segments of text on the same line as a previous highlight without the previous highlight disappearing.
  3. this is unrelated to overlapping highlighting.
  4. This is not a feature request.

It looks like there is some confusion because my steps to reproduce were slightly vague. The original highlight must span more than one line. Let me outline again the steps to reproduce.

  1. Open a PDF in DTPO.
  2. Find a paragraph of text.
  3. Select the first line and half of the second and highlight it (cmd-shift-L)
  4. Deselect that text and observe that it is now highlighted.
  5. Without switching highlight colours, select text anywhere after the highlighting from step 3 and highlight it (cmd-shift-L).
  6. Observe that while the line you just highlighted may or may not be highlighted and the first highlighted section from step 3 is no longer highlighted.

See the series of screenshots that follows:
Single highlight spanning more than one line (Step 3)

Second passage selected, beginning on the same line the previous passage ends:

Result of highlighting second passage:

You can see that in the third screenshot, the originally highlighted section is now no longer highlighted and the newly selected passage also never got highlighted.

I can reproduce this on every single PDF in my collection using DTPO. I CANNOT reproduce this on ANY PDF in Preview.

Following the steps outlined above, I can’t reproduce it on any PDF I have. Please start a Support Ticket and provide sample PDFs we can test against.

And as noted, PDFs are not all equal.

strange you were unable to reproduce it. I just tried again on 4 more PDFs and had no issues reproducing.

Anyway, support ticket submitting with sample documents and a screen recording. Thanks for all the help from everyone!

I tried this myself on a PDF that I just created from a Formatted Note. I see the exact behavior that @scottougheed describes.

Hmmm. How did you create the PDF? I printed a formatted note to PDF and do not see the behavior in that case.

Selected Print from DEVONthink, then chose Save PDF to DEVONthink Pro as the option. Just tried annotating a PDF created with Adobe PDF Library 6.0 and I see the same thing.

I also notice that the highlight shortcut Command-Shift-L is no longer working for me-perhaps related?

I am not seeing it either, Greg.

Thanks for the bug report, the next maintenance release will fix this.

Apologies for wading in late – and good to see a possible fix coming up!

But FWIW, same thing happens this side, with certain PDFs.

Latest release of DEVONthink (2.8.6) fixes this issue as promised!

Thanks DEVONtech folks!

No,issue has not been fixed yet!

issue still not fixed

Please send us a PDF plus a note describing how to reproduce this and which version of macOS/DEVONthink you’re using (as it’s usually an issue of the PDFkit - sometimes it’s possible to work around it, sometimes not). Thanks!

La Chapelle-d’Abondance _ suite à l’accident de parapente, la femme du touriste décédé souhaite davantage de contrôles du matériel - Le Messager.pdf (220.7 KB) Mac OS 10.13.6

Thank you. But it this happens on every PDF, and alos on newer versions of MacOS that a had on another machine that is broken right now.

Thanks for the file! Apart from the usability highlighting seems to work as expected. Which problems did you experience and what exactly is necessary to make this happen?

I am having the same problem. If I highlight a section of text, I cannot highlight on the same line or even the line below without the first highlight erasing.

Here is an example:
First highlight
Screen Shot 41

Now I highlight the line just below and the first highlight disappears
Screen Shot 42

This is happening on most of my PDFs. My OSX is 11.2.3 and DT is 3.6.3. The PDF I used above is available here.

We are working on modifications for the next release. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Thanks for the PDF, the next release will improve this.