Is anyone aware of an app that will allow you to retrieve the position of the highlighted piece of text from a PDF ?
If i can generate a link that will open a pdf viewer and take me to the exact position of that highlight , that would be amazing .
I am in need of such a feature to complete my digital Zettelkasten setup .
How do you generally keep your bibliography box and slip box connected ? How do you keep you bib slip connected to the refernce ?
Interesting challenge. I imagine there is some tool to do it, but Iâm not directly familiar with an exact match. That said, I use PDF-XChange Editor (most features free, but a Pro version has even more). Itâs Windows-only, unfortunately. But it has a variety of features that might partially accomplish your goal, including Bookmarks in PDFs, Comments with Highlight, Underline, etc. (for a specific piece of text), etc. The Comments in particular can be exported and do include location info in the file. It appears to be in a standard Adobe (originators of the PDF format) file type and syntax, .fdf or .xfdf. Hereâs a sample of whatâs in the export, for what itâs worth:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xfdf xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/xfdf/" xml:space="preserve"
><f href="letter_birmingham_jail.pdf"
/><ids original="FC5DCDA4E0FBC17AFB7BA74B82D79165" modified="FC5DCDA4E0FBC17AFB7BA74B82D79165"
/><annots
><link Highlight="Invert" coords="114.96,410.16192,519.91704,410.16192,519.91704,419.99208,114.96,419.99208,72,400.08192,138.12,400.08192,138.12,409.91208,72,409.91208" page="0" date="D:20201122112716-08'00'" name="d6da296a-1657-4c20-8439778466f201ff" rect="72,400.08192,519.91704,419.99208" color="#000000" width="0"
/><link Highlight="Invert" coords="72,360.24192,503.86272,360.24192,503.86272,370.07208,72,370.07208,72,350.16192,131.10864,350.16192,131.10864,359.99208,72,359.99208" page="0" date="D:20201122112733-08'00'" name="f2b4a918-037e-4add-8677dd6cca5b8a9c" rect="72,350.16192,503.86272,370.07208" color="#000000" width="0"
/><highlight coords="72,667.91208,176.7,667.91208,72,658.08192,176.7,658.08192" title="Oshyan" creationdate="D:20201122113213-08'00'" subject="Highlight" page="0" date="D:20201122113223-08'00'" flags="print" name="b731ef27-9983-4267-8ea34b5d797d40c3" rect="70.048937,658.08191,178.651061,667.91211" color="#FFFF00"
><popup open="no" page="0" date="D:20201122113224-08'00'" flags="invisible,nozoom,norotate" name="d7ceec0d-6855-406a-9a6597c2809f4084" rect="389.5,542.5,539.5,622.5"
/></highlight
><text icon="Check" inreplyto="b731ef27-9983-4267-8ea34b5d797d40c3" title="Oshyan" creationdate="D:20201122113223-08'00'" subject="Sticky Note" page="0" date="D:20201122113223-08'00'" flags="print,nozoom,norotate" name="f939f71d-f62a-4ade-bb68ab68de77b62f" rect="0,-18,20,0" color="#FFFF00"
><popup open="yes" page="0" date="D:20201122113223-08'00'" flags="invisible,nozoom,norotate" name="71627f7b-0ed6-4a6f-92a89e9807ff0b48" rect="0,0,0,0"
/></text
><underline coords="72,519.59208,122.70864,519.59208,72,509.76192,122.70864,509.76192" title="Oshyan" creationdate="D:20201122113251-08'00'" subject="Underline" page="0" date="D:20201122113251-08'00'" flags="print" name="8e1d9b3e-873f-47d3-80e2b064126d6df1" rect="72,510.657807,122.708642,511.657807" color="#00FF00"
/></annots
></xfdf
>
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So given that the PDF format has bookmarks/links/etc. functions as part of the spec, I guess a PDF editor that supports that may be your best chance of such a feature. It looks like some of the better Mac PDF apps are:
And this open-source one that specifically says itâs for reading and annotating scientific papers:
I know that doesnât definitively answer your question, but hopefully it helps you get a step closer. Let us know if you do ultimately find a great tool for this!
Maybe the premium version of Diigo.
Thanks for the effort ! This is a good technique that I had never explored .
Unfortunately , I want to be as minimalistic as possible with respect to the apps I use in my workflow and so wouldnât want another app to read the comments/ highlights I make in the PDFs.
In my ideal situation , I should be able to generate a link (local) for my highlight/comment in the pdf and I should be able to paste it in the note-taking app of my choice , as bibliography metadata for my slip. This would enable me to refer to the source material and by literature notes (comments) without having to maintain a separate slip box for both .
I have a feeling that the app named hook , might be able to help me with that . But havenât gone down that rabbit hole yet . Will update once I try .
UPDATE : I just checked https://hookproductivity.com/help/general/features/ and I think itâs almost there . It links almost every file in the MacOs with each other , has backlinks as well .
Itâs like Roam OS.
Unfortunately , doesnât have deep linking to the text level of PDFs. But there is an update thatâs coming this year which promises to do just that . Will have an eye out for that .
Meanwhile , I found this other app that does the text level linking : âPDFoo on the App Store
Will update after I have tried it .
Unfortunately , thereâs no mention of being able to export the annotated sections of PDFs as links anywhere in the website . Am I missing something ?
Also , this came as a surprise to me . Is this a web annotation tool like hypothesis.is and world brainâs memex ? I have never heard of this and the website says they have more than 9 M + users . That is a LOT .
I was trying with Diigo here. You should be able to highlight text inside the Pdfs and create a share link for each highlight, but looks like isnât working. Iâll ask from support why isnât working.
My app (Keypoints, see my intro here) tries to connect note taking, PDF annotation & reference management. It can be used as a standalone app but can also work as a hub to feed into other apps. Each note extracted from a PDF highlight gets its own URL. Clicking such an URL will select the note in the app and open the corresponding PDF with the highlighted text next to it.
I realize that you only want to use a single app, but since youâd likely need a PDF viewer anyhow(?), maybe this would still be a feasible solution? My app isnât yet available, but I wanted to mentioned it here since I wrote this app exactly for this use case.