Translate a PDTextSelect variable to a PDEElement

[LWShay]

I'm working with a PDTextSelect variable in order to get user selected text. Is there any way to then turn this PDTextSelect varible into a PDEElement? I have tried a couple of thing so far including reinterpret_cast<PDEElement> but nothing has worked.

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

There is no direct conversion. They are entirely different kinds of representation. The order of text and characters may not even be the same. Once you have the coordinates of a PDTextSelect you can iterate the PDEText elements to find the elements (not necessarily consecutive) which overlap in the coordinates. The selection is likely to be only a portion of a PDETextRun. This is complicated stuff (albeit important and an obvious need). Text editing is a very complex task and generally works entirely in the PDF edit layer, implementing its own selection logic.

[lrosenth]

As TSN says, this is not a trivial piece. What do you need the PDEElement for? Perhaps there are other structures that are easier to work with from the PDTextSelect that you could use instead.

[LWShay]

I'm trying to find the selected text in the content tree

[lrosenth]

Then you basically need to do what TSN described.

Walk the contents (PDEElements) and compare the bounding boxes to find those inside the selection rectangle.

[LWShay]

Okay, that helps a lot. I'll give it a try.