Comment & Markup rectangle tool with X?

[act_98006]

Is there a way to add a BIG "X" in the middle of the rectangle comment tool in Acrobat?  We need to place a red rectangle over certain items and we would like the rectangle to have a large red X from corner to corner.  I know we can fill the rectangle with a color with varying opacity, but we want big X if we can get it.

Thanks,

Andy

[Document Geek]

You may want to consider a different tool. The rectangle tool doesn't allow you to have an X through it. After a bit of experimentation, I think the best solution is to draw it using the Connected Lines Tool. Remember back in about the fifth grade in math class, when we had to draw an X inside of a box using a single continuous pencil stroke, using the fewest lines possible? That's what this is. Give it a whirl and see if that will work for you.

The good thing about this method is that the whole thing is a single object, and you can set the fill to none, and the border color and thickness all in one fell swoop.

[act_98006]

Document Geek,

Thanks  for the feedback.  I thought about that, but for our purposes we need something very simple. We have to create the boxed X's quickly and with multiple boxes per page on up to 32 pages every day.  There could be as many as 20 per page so I *think* your method would be too cumbersome for this purpose.  Being able to drag and draw an X'ed box would be simple and easy,  The connected-line method would just be too much work for this applications I fear.

Andy

[Document Geek]

Hi Andy,

You could also create a custom stamp and then it will be a 1-click application. However, stamps do not scale unproportionally, so if you want to have a rectangle (rather than a square) with an X-through it, that stamp would work. But you could create several X stamps of varying widths. Perhaps that might work better for you.

[act_98006]

Document Geek,

Yeah, I was thinking about that.  I have not made a custom stamp before so I need to learn how to do that.  I noticed that they do not scale of both axis so the idea of creating multiple stamps might be a way to go.  Thanks for your input on this question.

Andy

[try67]

There is another way of doing it. It's possible to write a script that will automatically add the "X" to all of your Square annotations, once you've created them. Those X won't be a part of the same comment as the rectangle, though, so if you move, resize or delete the latter it won't affect them, but you'll have something close to what you described...

[act_98006]

Try67, thank you.  All I need to do is learn how to write the script. 

[try67]

If you're interested, this is something I could develop for you (for a small fee).

You can contact me privately at try6767 at gmail.com to discuss it further.