Comment/Highlight sorting in two-column pdf

Report · Jun 06, 2022

If a pdf has two columns (the default in any journal), then the highlights and comments do not appear in order in the pane on the right. Rather, if a highlight/comment on the second column is higher up than a highlight/comment on the first column, it comes before it!

Ie the pdf is not recognizing columns. This makes the highlights unreadable, as the sequence is broken.

I am surprised there are not many posts on this, as there does not seem to be a fix.

Report · Jun 06, 2022

You are corect. The order of the comments is according to the order in which they appear in the page vertically.

Honestly, I've been using Acrobat for 20 years, and you're the first person I've ever seen ask about this.

Sorry it's giving you trouble.

There is a workaround:

Go to Preferences > Commenting > Uncheck "Always use login name for author name."

Then you can change the Author name of the comments:

Column 1

Column 2, etc.

Then sort by Author name.

You could also highlight each column in a different color and sort by color.

Report · Jun 06, 2022

Thanks for the suggestions. My concern is a valid one, the export/print functions are meaningless with this problem.

I read dozens of pdfs and want to export my highlighted sections.

Adobe could just fix it, as the proposed solutions are not practical for regular users.

Report · Oct 20, 2023

I agree with Deboarah. This is an issue that should be resolved by making it an option within preferences. And as for D Geek ... many issues don't go reported, or talked about, due to the level of priority BUT they are still recognized by those working in Acrobat daily withing 40 page guides/documents — per the conversations I've had with peers. Clicking through the edits based on the vertical position on a page is silly. Silly in the sense that you have this linear display of comments but it doesn't following the edits in the correct linear/narative sequence.

I say make more noise about this ao Adobe gets on board. Just figure out the programming that allows Acrobat to recognize the correct sequence — primary ... paragraph-to-paragraph, column-to-column secondary ... postion of callouts and sidebars vertically — and then add a preference that can be checked. It would be very helpful and much smarter to follow mark-ups this way. Take it from someone wroking on these documents since the inception of Acrobat commenting.

Peace.

Report · Oct 21, 2023

Thank you Scott!

And while we're at it, maybe get Adobe to fix its appalling scrolling capacity, where the document freezes or you simply can't scroll as much as you need but it jumps around? There is a command that somewhat improves things ((I think control H on Macs) but it's still the worst scrolling experience in any app I use. Not that anyone is paying attention, but just to get it out there....