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iOS app redacting handwriting from PDF?


mgrad92

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I've been using Evernote for years, but I've encountered something I'd never seen before. I routinely keep handwritten notes in a pocket notebook or steno pad and scan them into Evernote for safekeeping and search. Today I scanned my pocket notebook, dropped the PDF into the Evernote app on my MacBook, but when I checked it in the app on my phone I saw some of the text had been removed.

I've attached two screenshots, one taken from a page from the original note in the Evernote app on my MacBook, where everything still looks fine, and the other of the same page as it appears when I call up the same PDF on my iPhone.

If I tap the Annotate button in the app on my phone, I can see the original writing on the page — but even if I annotate that page and save it, the redacted page still displays.

Is this because I put a line through some of my notes? If that's a feature in the iOS app, how can I turn it off so I can see my complete handwritten notes as I intended them to look?

MacBook.png

iOS app.PNG

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5 minutes ago, mgrad92 said:

when I checked it in the app on my phone I saw some of the text had been removed.

Evernote would not edit a pdf, removing/redacting text.  However I can understand display issues.

Does the pdf display ok on other platforms, other applications?

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32 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Does the pdf display ok on other platforms, other applications?

Yes — both of those screenshots are from the same page in the same PDF, one taken from the Evernote app on my MacBook, where everything I wrote is visible, and the other taken from the Evernote app on my iPhone, where some (but not all) of the handwritten notes I put a line through have been redacted. (I'm pretty sure redacted is the right word — if you look closely, you can see where it's obscured what I've written with yellow that's meant to closely match the background.) 

Even within the iOS app, when I tap the Annotate button and look at that page of handwriting, what I see matches what I see in the macOS app. But after I tap Save from the annotation screen (whether or not I add annotations to that page), my handwriting is hidden/redacted/whatever again.

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So, I couldn't post a public link to the complete PDF, since it contains about six months of personal information. But I figured I could make a PDF of just the page I used in the screenshot and post a public link to that. Then:

  1. I opened the PDF in Preview on my MacBook, pulled that page out into its own document, and put that in a new note — but before posting a link here, I noticed it didn't have the same problem when viewed on my iPhone, even though the original still did.
  2. I then made a copy of the original PDF on my MacBook, renamed it on my desktop (from Field Notes - 10-13-17 to 4-17-18.pdf to Field_Notes-10-13-17_to_4-17-18.pdf) and dropped it in a new note. It didn't have the same problem on my iPhone, either — but the original still did.
  3. I then took the original note in Evernote on my MacBook, tapped the Annotate button on the PDF and deleted all pages from the PDF except for the page that was having the problem. I saved my changes, and the modified file no longer had the problem on my iPhone.
  4. I then reuploaded the original, unaltered PDF to a new note in Evernote on my MacBook and checked that on my iPhone. It has the same missing text.

So, somehow making a change to this PDF file — whether giving an identical file a different name and reuploading it to Evernote, or removing pages from the file within Evernote — seems to have fixed my problem.

Also: That was really weird. Seems like I have the notes I need, but I can still look at the PDF with obscured handwriting on my phone. Any idea what I'm looking at? 

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