Feature request: underline option rather than highlight for PDFs

Anthony J. Langlois

Please can we have an underline option, instead of fluorescence highlight colours.

Some of us are antiquated and still like to pretend we only have pencils.

It would be so wonderful to just be able to use underlining!!

dbrear

I don’t have Zotero handy - I use the desktop version - but surely that is available?
I like to use it sometimes too, eg. to point out an author’s mistake rather than a point of interest.

dbrear

Just realised we’re talking about different things. My apologies.

Anthony J. Langlois

There is a pencil option, which can be used to underline - but it does not have the same annotation functionality as the highlight option. So its use value is underwhelming, in terms of what one wants to get out of an annotation. (For eg, you can't underline and then get access to the underlined text to cut and paste, or use in a note, etc)

Also, if using the pencil, you have to do all of the underlining, rather than highlighting a paragraph, say, and then having it all appear as underlined.

sahil48

I am in favor of an underline tool in addition to a florescent highlight color. Oftentimes, I would highlight a keyword, and underline the description of it with the same color. It helps distinguish the keywords and key points from the sentences that further support them.

dstillman

So to be clear, this is basically just a visual difference, right? You'd still want to select text the same way, just with the appearance of a line under the selected text instead of a background color?

Anthony J. Langlois

Hi Dan - yes, that's right!

I find large blocks of bright colours distracting; prefer a discreet underline.

Thanks so much for all the advances in Z6 and the wonderful IOS app! Brilliant!

sahil48

Correct and good point. So, essentially, a flag or checkbox to display as highlight or underline for a text annotation would be sufficient for me.

Anthony J. Langlois

oh - sorry if answered when the question was addressed to sahil48!!

Nicozck

I look forward to use this function.

sebdeferm

+1; i would love to have this feature in normal colors (not to flashy, similar to what readcube currently offers) ! ! !

karahanyilmazer

+1 to the underline function

JJFoest

+1 It would be great to have an underline feature in addition to the highlighting. I used to underline subtitles so that I could easily mark sections in my extracted notes. Thank you!

cocoaaa

+1 for the underline feature. I use underline to mark texts that are notable but less significant than highlighted texts. It would be great to have this additional level of annotation. Thank you!

Akincano

+1 for an underline feature with annotation functionality.

sbusse

+1 I prefer to use the underline feature in my PDF annotator. In Zotero I'm not able to import my annotations since they are flagged as read-only.

mu_ali

+1 for underline function - i would prefer underline for now versus highlights. I agree with the above comments that the highlight colours are a bit flashy and for me it can cause visual sensory discomfort after a while - due to my sensitivity issues to bright and flashy things from medical conditions.

I was hoping for a feature that allows us to adjust the opacity and depth of the highlight colours. That would be a perfect solution!

Otherwise I am in Love with zotero - I would really like annotating in zotero my pdf's because of so many valuable features. Just the additions of above would tick all boxes for me!

Tomero

I would also really like to be able to underline. I finally decided to make the switch to Zotero’s pdf reader but miss this functionality. Additionally being able to both highlight and underline the same text is also important.

spintheturtle

+1

would love to be able to highlight. I use a set system for marking up documents and underline would be extremely useful.

t-g

+1
additional underline option would be sweet for visual ease + global opacity settings on the highlights, gotta mention that, I've been thinking of it for a while now, I know it's mentioned elsewhere, I hope it happens, and that any opacity setting carries through when I print things!

Anthony J. Langlois

I wonder if there has been any progress on this request, or any possibility for it?
Its been over a year since I put it in (and it appeared to be noticed, judging by Dan's comment above??)

Or is there just a conspiracy afoot to socialise me into the use of fluorescent coloured highlighting? ;-)

dstillman

Underlining is planned.

Anthony J. Langlois

Terrific! Many thanks!

Neofight

Hi @dstillman wondering if the underline functionality is still in the pipeline. If yes, I'd like to advance two more arguments in its favour:

i) imported underline turns into highlights; thus, my entire PDF has turned red (because I, admittedly, underline a lot and the only available colour is red in the external PDF viewer)

ii) some of us use combinations of underline and highlights. I know it's weird, but it's an added bonus.

Thank you for all the help.

dstillman

Yes, underlining is available in the Zotero 7 beta.

Neofight

Thanks, I tried and it works beautifully!

soyeonlee4

Thank you @dstillman. Finally!
Thank you, @Anthony J. Langlois for suggesting this feature.