Copying Text comments (etc.) in DC

[pmkm]

I've just started working with DC after 4 years with Acrobat and am feeling my way with a short job before taking the plunge. I use a lot of Text comments on the page and often want to copy those within the same PDF (if the same thing needs requesting more than once, for example). In Adobe Acrobat, the usual copy and paste functions worked with this as well. However, when I try copying a Text comment in DC, whether I use the menu commands Copy and Paste or the usual keyboard shortcut, it gives me an insert mark instead of the on-page Text comment that I want. Does anyone know if this is a bug or is there a way to change it? This will be the last time I use DC until/unless I can solve this as I'll waste a lot of time re-keying.

I'm not talking about importing comments from one PDF to another; this is about wanting to copy an on-page Text box with the same comment at the start of every chapter within the same PDF, for example. I'm on a Mac – I don't know if the same thing happens on a PC.

Many thanks in advance for any tips.

[Document Geek · Accepted solution]

I just tried it and was able to copy and past comments without any trouble. It seems that the comments made using the Add Text tool are a little finicky. First select them in the Comments pane, copy them, and then go to your other page and paste them. They won't paste in the same place. They paste in the center of the page, so you'll have to move them to where you want.

The Add Text tool sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I recommend using the Add Text Box tool and simply removing the red border if you don't want it. That type of comment seems to work better than the Add Text tool. But I just tried again and they work equally well...

Sometimes I find that switching from the hand tool to the Text Box tool seems to kick it into gear to make it work. There doesn't seem to be a consistent behavior. Sorry. Try those those things and see if any of them help you.

[pmkm]

Thanks for your reply. I should have said 'Text Box' comments as those were the problem (but not so much now ... see below). I know copying anything typed with the Text tool is fiddly – as is re-sizing it on more/fewer lines – but I don't often need/want to copy those, thankfully. (Your suggestion of copying them from the Comments pane is a good tip though, thanks.)

Since my first comment, I'd discovered that copying/pasting stamps and lines worked fine in DC, just as it did in 'pre DC Acrobat', but I went back to try again with Text Box comments after reading your reply and have discovered that as long as I don't click on the page to position them where I want, the Text Box comment will indeed paste itself on the page. OK, it's in the middle of the page, as you say, but at least it's there. It's just that the natural thing is to click where you want the Text Box comment to sit, and if I do that, I get an insert caret with a box inviting me to reply to my own comment ...! It'll just taking some getting used to as I might want the same comment 10 pages later and I'll have to scroll down and resist the temptation to click to position it when I get to the page where I need it.

Just to check, I went back into my 'pre DC Acrobat' and checked that what I'm describing definitely doesn't happen there. If you click where you want the Text Box to past itself, OK, it doesn't put it quite there and it does move your cursor to that position, but it doesn't give you the insert caret and a pop-up for your reply. Thanks again for your input.

[forbes47]

Thanks for posting this, pmkm. This behavior of DC is very poor, as I suspect you'd agree. Apparently Adobe doesn't know that one of the major uses of Acrobat is by printers sending proofs to authors for correction. Printers can make the same mistake over and over again and you have to comment on each and every occurrence, since it is asking too much to expect the printer to see from your comment at the first occurrence of the mistake how to correct it, and then to correct all subsequent occurrences on their own initiative. I am currently fixing an article of mine with math notation and finding 10 or more occurrences of the same printer's error *on the same page*. I would like just to highlight each repeated error and paste in the comment box I created at the first occurrence of it, but no, I get the box in the middle of the page and have to move it manually. Ten or more times. It's actually quicker to create a new comment box and paste in the text from the first one. "Quicker" is of course relative.