Zotero 8 beta: Highlight colors are darker on one page

warwickmm · 2025-08-02T17:28:42+00:00

After updating to version 8.0-beta.2+2bff6541f (64-bit) on Linux, I noticed in one PDF that the highlights on one page appear darker than on other pages. Compare the highlights on the left and right pages:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u7554954/lvdy6b7zejwj0elp808j.png

The PDF opens in "Zoom to Page Height" mode. If I zoom in or out, the colors on the left become consistent with those on the right. If I go back to "Zoom to Page Height", the colors remain consistent with those on the right. However, if I close the tab and reopen it, the colors on the left darken again.

So far, I've only noticed this on this specific page of this particular PDF.

warwickmm · 2025-08-02T17:32:26+00:00

If I make a new highlight (bottom one), the color appears to be normal:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u7554954/bxr6p5v9gce9cywzxgkl.png

However, if I close and re-open the tab, it becomes dark again:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u7554954/oh18au0lwwa404gymx4o.png

warwickmm · 2025-08-02T17:36:44+00:00

After some more testing, I've also noticed:

1. This appears to be theme dependent. If I use the Original theme, both the left and right pages have dark highlights.
2. This isn't specific to this particular page. Rather, it affects whatever pages are displayed first when opening the PDF.
3. I've found some other PDFs that exhibit this behavior as well.

martynas_b · 2025-08-05T09:40:59+00:00

Could you send an example PDF file, exported with the annotations, to support@zotero.org along with a link to this thread?

warwickmm · 2025-08-05T15:27:43+00:00

Sent. So far, I've noticed that the PDFs that have the issue are all books with many pages.

warwickmm · 2025-08-05T15:29:51+00:00

I'm also only able to reproduce this if the PDF opens in Zoom to Page Height or Zoom to Page Width mode. If I zoom in/out and then close/reopen the PDF, the highlights look fine. However, if I use one of those presets, I get the dark highlights when opening the PDF.