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I
Inélsòre
Inspiring
October 29, 2020
Question

How to have separate objects for each pencil drawing?

  • October 29, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 1134 views

I'm just getting started with Commenting and Reviewing on Acrobat Pro (v. 2020.012), coming from Preview for Mac. 

I'm used to marking up PDFs with the pencil tool but I can't understand why when I mark-up something it gets connected with the next markup creating a big rectangle selection. 

I would like each markup sign to stay isolated AND the pencil tool stay selected. 

I am probably going to use only this tool for the whole document so I guessed the PIN button was the thing but sometimes it gets unselected as I need to press ESC on my keyboard to avoid the grouping of markups.

I'm sure there is a way but I cant find it as it is totally counterintuitive compared to Preview. 

Thanks

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1 reply

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
October 29, 2020

I recently answered an identical question, but can't find it now. For me, holding down Ctrl before selecting the tool switched it from creating multiple comments to a single one (and pressing it again switched it back), but it seems that doesn't work in all versions. The other options is to select (and use!) a different commenting tool each time you want to "break up" your comments, or to use a script to separate each gesture to be an individual comment.

I
InélsòreAuthor
Inspiring
October 29, 2020

I'm on Mac and Ctrl functions as a right click tool.

So I used Cmd and, apparently, that worked. Held down Cmd while drawing and it created a finished markup.

Now, regardless of whether I keep Cmd pressed down or not during the next markup, it gets connected to the previous one.

Quite frustrating that such an advanced program seems to be missing a basic markup tool that just works. 

Preview is free with macOS and with all its limitations works much better with this, PDF Expert used to be pay-own-to-own and it has much better markup tools (maybe not as many as Acrobat but what is there works better and more reliably).

I hope there is a solution.

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
October 29, 2020

I'm working on a (paid-for) script to split pencil gestures as individual comments as we speak... I will post a link to it when it's ready.

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