Query about comments

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Hi

We have been having increasing problems over the last few years with comments in PDFs. We like to create a summary of the comments and print them out, but increasingly that is becoming impossible with some files - not all comments show up unless we jump through some hoops first and even then getting a print-out is not always possible. I believe this is because these comments have been added by the user in a web browser rather than in Acrobat/Reader - Microsoft Edge is the usual culprit.

Can I ask the group two questions please;

Has anyone found a way using Acrobat/Reader to reliably view and create a summary of all the corrections when they have been added by a web browser? We are currently using Acrobat X Pro but recent versions of DC Pro and Reader appear to have the same problem.
Has anyone found a way to print comments from a web browser displaying the PDF. A summary like Acrobat made would be ideal but willing to try anything. Currently when I print such files I see highlighted text but none of the actual comments.

Yes, obviously we can work from the PDF rather than printing them out but for our purposes that is usually less than ideal.

Many thanks,

Iain

Report · Aug 30, 2023

So the comments appear in the Comments List in the application, but not in the Comment Summary, or do they only appear on the page? If they don't appear in the Comments List there's nothing that can be done about it.

If they do appear then then maybe there's some issue with their internal structure that's causing Acrobat to skip them when creating the summary. You would need to share a sample file for further help, if that's the case.

The real solution is to instruct the users to only work on the files in Reader, as other PDF viewers are not compliant with the full PDF specs, but I'm aware that's usually wishful thinking, and they often don't listen to such advice...

Report · Aug 30, 2023

All comments show up as highlighted/crossed through text on the page but only some comments appear in the list (and subsequent summary). As I scroll through the PDF more comments appear in the list, but not always. I know this is caused by non-Adobe software being used to add the comments but as Microsoft Edge is the main culprit (in my experience) it would be good if Adobe could cater for comments added like that. Were it not for the fact that I can't see a way to print out comments from Edge either I would just use that rather than the Adobe software I have paid for.

Windows 10 likes to reset file associations fairly often and I know some people don't notice that their PDFs are now being opened in Edge rather than Acrobat/Reader - seems unbelievable to me but I know it happens and just wishing that people didn't do it sadly doesn't fix this very real problem. I do request they don't do it next time is not always successful and doesn't help this time.

thanks,

Iain

Report · Aug 30, 2023

> it would be good if Adobe could cater for comments added like that

Actually, it already does. The fact they appear at all means that Adobe is fixing them (or ignoring the errors in them) behind the scenes.

What you can try is to scroll all the way down so that all the comments are visible in the list. Then export the comments data to a stand-alone FDF file, and import that file back into a blank version of the PDF (before it was edited elsewhere). There's a good chance (although not 100%) that will solve the issues.

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Thanks - I have done that and it does not really help. Sorry, should have been more explicit with what I had already tried. To be honest I'd rather it didn't read any comments than only read some. You could easily correct the ones in the list not realising there were actually more not showing - that is dangerous.

Report · Aug 30, 2023

I fully agree. It would have been better to show no comments and maybe an error message, instead of showing just some, and "revealing" others later on. I've also encountered this happening, and it can be very frustrating.

If you would share a sample file I could look into solving this using external tools.

Report · Aug 31, 2023

Thank you for the offer. I will try and send you a private messaage with a link to the PDF in question. It contains our customer's unpublished work so I don't think I should post it on this forum. Thanks.

Report · Sep 06, 2023

Has anyone else got any thoughts about this problem?