Discussion:
[Skim-app-users] Highlight height
Charles Lowe
2015-05-04 09:37:05 UTC
Permalink
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.

Thanks,
Charles
Christiaan Hofman
2015-05-04 09:43:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Charles Lowe
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's PDFKit, we have no influence over this.

Christiaan
Charles Lowe
2015-05-04 16:52:05 UTC
Permalink
Thanks for the reply. Interesting, does it use a different or older version of PDFKit than the current version of Preview? Because the highlighting in Preview is significantly taller and non-rounded (and thus, for my purposes, more useful).

Cheers,
Charles
Post by Christiaan Hofman
Post by Charles Lowe
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's PDFKit, we have no influence over this.
Christiaan
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Christiaan Hofman
2015-05-04 21:57:05 UTC
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Post by Charles Lowe
Thanks for the reply. Interesting, does it use a different or older version of PDFKit than the current version of Preview? Because the highlighting in Preview is significantly taller and non-rounded (and thus, for my purposes, more useful).
Cheers,
Charles
It cannot use a different version, because it uses the exact same executable, which is part of the system.

So I doubt it really is different.

Christiaan
Post by Charles Lowe
Post by Christiaan Hofman
Post by Charles Lowe
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's PDFKit, we have no influence over this.
Christiaan
Jan David Hauck
2015-05-05 17:39:07 UTC
Permalink
That's interesting, because in fact in Preview the highlights are
considerably higher on any pdf, i.e., they even overlap across lines.

I've experienced the problem with very small highlights especially in
scanned and OCR'ed pdfs. So I guess it has to do with the PDF.

Nonetheless, I agree that it would be nice to have the highlights a little
larger in general.
Post by Charles Lowe
Thanks for the reply. Interesting, does it use a different or older
version of PDFKit than the current version of Preview? Because the
highlighting in Preview is significantly taller and non-rounded (and thus,
for my purposes, more useful).
Cheers,
Charles
It cannot use a different version, because it uses the exact same
executable, which is part of the system.
So I doubt it really is different.
Christiaan
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached
screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader
DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's
PDFKit, we have no influence over this.
Christiaan
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Charles Lowe
2015-05-10 20:48:16 UTC
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I’ve been doing some more testing comparing highlights between Adobe, Preview and Skim using a scanned/OCR pdf. I used two versions of the pdf, one created in Adobe, and the other created in Adobe and then subsequently saved in Preview. I’ve attached a png showing highlights from Preview and Skim. A few observations:

1) It makes a difference for all three programs whether the pdf was subsequently saved in Preview or not. The most dramatic difference can been seen in the Skim-edited examples, with the Adobe-created, Skim-edited pdf showing the least amount of height/coverage. This is unfortunate, as one of my main reasons for using Skim is to avoid the massive jump in file size that occurs when saving such a pdf in Preview.

2) There are, at least on my setup, undeniable differences between the Preview-generated and Skim-generated highlights. The most obvious of these is the rounded edges of Skim’s highlights vs. the squared ones of Preview. But beyond this there’s also an obvious difference in height which is most easily noticed if you compare the whitespace that remains around the letters in the title in the attached png.

I can send a page out of the pdf I’m working with if anyone is interested in looking into this any further.
That's interesting, because in fact in Preview the highlights are considerably higher on any pdf, i.e., they even overlap across lines.
I've experienced the problem with very small highlights especially in scanned and OCR'ed pdfs. So I guess it has to do with the PDF.
Nonetheless, I agree that it would be nice to have the highlights a little larger in general.
Post by Charles Lowe
Thanks for the reply. Interesting, does it use a different or older version of PDFKit than the current version of Preview? Because the highlighting in Preview is significantly taller and non-rounded (and thus, for my purposes, more useful).
Cheers,
Charles
It cannot use a different version, because it uses the exact same executable, which is part of the system.
So I doubt it really is different.
Christiaan
Post by Charles Lowe
Post by Christiaan Hofman
Post by Charles Lowe
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's PDFKit, we have no influence over this.
Christiaan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Performance metrics, stats and reports that give you Actionable Insights
Deep dive visibility with transaction tracing using APM Insight.
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Christiaan Hofman
2015-05-10 21:07:21 UTC
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Well, all I can really say is that I fail to see why Apple feels that they need to hack their own library just for themselves, rather than change it for everybody. If they think PDFKit doesn't do it correctly, they should fix that there. But they seem to be doing more of this lately (like with the arrow keys in single page mode). I am not sure whether I should call this evil or stupid. But it's not our place to fix that, in fact officially we are not even capable of doing that.

Christiaan
Post by Charles Lowe
1) It makes a difference for all three programs whether the pdf was subsequently saved in Preview or not. The most dramatic difference can been seen in the Skim-edited examples, with the Adobe-created, Skim-edited pdf showing the least amount of height/coverage. This is unfortunate, as one of my main reasons for using Skim is to avoid the massive jump in file size that occurs when saving such a pdf in Preview.
2) There are, at least on my setup, undeniable differences between the Preview-generated and Skim-generated highlights. The most obvious of these is the rounded edges of Skim’s highlights vs. the squared ones of Preview. But beyond this there’s also an obvious difference in height which is most easily noticed if you compare the whitespace that remains around the letters in the title in the attached png.
I can send a page out of the pdf I’m working with if anyone is interested in looking into this any further.
<Skim highlight comparison.png>
That's interesting, because in fact in Preview the highlights are considerably higher on any pdf, i.e., they even overlap across lines.
I've experienced the problem with very small highlights especially in scanned and OCR'ed pdfs. So I guess it has to do with the PDF.
Nonetheless, I agree that it would be nice to have the highlights a little larger in general.
Post by Charles Lowe
Thanks for the reply. Interesting, does it use a different or older version of PDFKit than the current version of Preview? Because the highlighting in Preview is significantly taller and non-rounded (and thus, for my purposes, more useful).
Cheers,
Charles
It cannot use a different version, because it uses the exact same executable, which is part of the system.
So I doubt it really is different.
Christiaan
Post by Charles Lowe
Post by Christiaan Hofman
Post by Charles Lowe
Is there any way to change the height of text highlighting? I've attached screenshots of the same PDF as annotated in Preview, Skim, and Adobe Reader DC to show what I mean.
Thanks,
Charles
No, there is no way to change this. The highlight is drawn by Apple's PDFKit, we have no influence over this.
Christiaan
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