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Edit PDF

After editing a PDF contained in an image-field using the new editor, if you click on the image-field that contains the PDF, Ninox displays the PDF only in the PDF editor.

It seems that the modified document cannot be accessed as a PDF, for example with the default application which opens a PDF.

I observed that Ninox saved an .xfdf document with the changes made to the original PDF.

But this .xfdf file cannot be opened as a PDF because it appears to be an XML file...

How can we recover the modified file as a PDF ?

20 replies

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    • Mel_Charles
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    Haven't tested it but in the pdf edit mode if you click on the "panel" icon (top left)

    You will see the thumb nail of the image. click this and there is an option to copy or save (download)

    you would have to check to see if it it offers various file formats

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    In the PDF editor
    I click on the panel icon
    two buttons available: Thumbnail and Outlines
    Thumbnail icon is selected
    A thumbnail of the document is displayed
    Above the thumbnail of the document there is a zoom slider
    But nothing else that can save as...
    I specify that I use Ninox version macOS

    • Choices_Software_Dean
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    Try clicking the gear icon on the right and then selecting print. Then choose to print to PDF (instead of printing to your printer). This will allow you to save the edited PDF file locally. Then you can import it back to Ninox as an attachment to the same record. If you do not see a "Print to PDF" or "Save to PDF" option when printing, then you may need to install a PDF print driver. Hope this helps.

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    The gear icon menu only offers:

    - Full-screen
    - Dark mode
    - Language

    There is no menu item: Print

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    The Full screen command is not operational...

    • Choices_Software_Dean
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    Regarding the thumbnail, when I try it on a Mac I have to right-click to see the save as option. When selected it prints to an image file in png format. However when I try it the resulting png file shows a blank page. The print option I described above should work. Not sure if the print to PDF print driver I mentioned comes standard with the Mac OS.

    • Choices_Software_Dean
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    Attached is a screenshot with the gear icon showing print option.

      • Tobias.1
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       yes, this is a way to accomplish this. Printing from this menu in the browser will print the annotated pdf, and will also allow you to save as PDF (at least on Mac)

    • Choices_Software_Dean
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    The screenshot was from a iMac using the chrome browser using standard hosted version of Ninox.

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    I downloaded Adobe Acrobat Reader, set this app as the default app and restarted the Mac.
    But still no Print command.

    I think the difference is here:
    I don't use a hosted but native offline version of Ninox with a Mac...

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    I take advantage of your reactions to clarify my goal: to use PDFs generated by Ninox which offers hyperlinks.
    I tried to program inside a layout without result (only the complete URL is made active in the final PDF).
    That's why I was trying a manual solution without really liking the idea ;-(
    An example of PDFs produced by Ninox with full paths.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xKE9C6oFnS9Vm05xiBVW2Dzn9hxxfmDe/view?usp=sharing

    But the full path display is too small for a smartphone anyway.
    This path takes up space when it would be so efficient to be able to anchor the URL on the title located above...

    • frsalabert.1
    • 9 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Hello everybody!

    Is there any news on this topic?

    If I well understand, it’s only working on the webapp AND under a teamworkspace…

    Any chance for an update? What you think?

    • Tobias.1
    • 9 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    You are touching on two topics here, the storage of PDF annotations in an XFDF file, and the ability to add links to a PDF.

    XFDF files

    When editing a PDF file in Ninox, the platform saves the changes made to the PDF as an XFDF (XML Forms Data Format) document, rather than directly modifying the original PDF file. This XFDF file contains the changes made to the PDF, but it cannot be opened directly as a PDF.

    The main benefit is that it allows for more efficient handling and exchange of annotations, especially in collaborative workflows and that it retains the integrity of the original PDF.

    • The XFDF format is a standard XML-based format that can be easily stored, transferred, and integrated with the original PDF document, without modifying the PDF itself.
    • The XFDF file can be stored separately, making it easier to manage and transfer annotations without the need to send the entire PDF document.
    • XFDF provides a standardized way to import and export annotations, allowing integration with various PDF tools and platforms.

    If you want to recombine them, let’s look at two options: 

    1. Locally on a Mac: Users can use Adobe Acrobat to open the PDF file, then import the XFDF file using the "Comments" > "Import" menu option. This will apply the annotations from the XFDF file to the PDF.
    2. Advanced scripting or integration with external tools: there are tools like PDF.co, PDFtron and many more that offer APIs and some also make.com integration that might support merging PDF and XFDF files.

     

    Links in PDF

    As was already observed, a url will be recognized as such by the pdf reader.

    If you want a shorter URL you could use a URL shortener like TonyURL which also has an API to create a shorter link that might also be more readable on mobile screens 

    https://tinyurl.com/app/dev

      • Tobias.1
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view
      • Retraité
      • Eric_Plet
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       

      What a surprise for me to find my old project on the web!

      I didn't even remember leaving it available on the web...

      And your example is very good for a guy like me who has never used an API before.

      A big thank you for your approach ;-)

    • frsalabert.1
    • 9 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Tobias!

    Thanks for the highlight. Your solution n°1 works great even if it's not very convenient🫤. Instead of saving the xfdf it could have been greater to save the original pdf in the attachements and let the modified one lives its life in Ninox (but I'm not a developper!). 

    Or it could be great to have the print option (or even better a "save as" option) in the pdf editor but available on all platforms (not only in the web version)... For my point of view: the best option for this topic (see reply from Westy above)

    I didn't see anything on the appStore able to manage an xfdf file or an add-on on the preview app getting the ability to import a xfdf... neither on your solution n°2...

    • Retraité
    • Eric_Plet
    • 9 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Why is the anchor element <a> with its href attribute not useable in a layout with the html function to get hyperlinks on text boxes? For example:

    let URL:= "https://ninox.com/en";

    let Link:= "<a href=" + URL + ">Site Ninox</a>";

    html(Link)

    In fact the link is active in the layout but no longer in the generated PDF document...

      • Tobias.1
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       This is a common issue when converting HTML to PDF: interactive elements like hyperlinks often lose their functionality in the process. This challenge isn't exclusive to Ninox; many platforms and tools that convert web-based content into PDFs face similar limitations, leading to a loss of interactivity in the converted documents.

      • Retraité
      • Eric_Plet
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       What a pity ;-(

Content aside

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