(Archived) Not understanding text colors (or technically the lack thereof)

[soundsgoodtome 155]

I'm in v2.7, and I need to add annotations and corrections to a PDF.
 
I've enjoyed using Skitch for adding arrows and such, but for the first time, I thought I'd try its text-annotation feature. I chose blue, then clicked on the document, and typed. The default is colored text that's (a) surrounded by a white outline and (  has a gray drop-shadow. It's may appear "cute," if the user's in high school, or for some sort of "fun" application like a silly photo -- but it's wholly inappropriate for professional use.
 
Well, when you select your text, you get a little box, with a slider between two, text options. On the left is the letter "a," in the default style with the white outline. On the right, there's a letter "a" without the outline and shadow. Great!
 
Or so I thought.
 
Unfortunately, when you move the slider to the right, instead of getting blue text, sans outline and shadow, you get plain black text, sans outline and shadow. In other words, instead of just removing the cutesy formatting, skitch also removes the text's color.
 
So I figured, at the very least, I could then select the text, then use Apple's default command for bringing up the color selector, so I could make the text blue again. (Still an unnecessary step, but better than nothing.) But no. Apple's system-wide, standard, text-formatting options (which do work in Evernote, incidentally) have been omitted from Skitch.
 
So, our choices are:
 
(a) Colored text with a juvenile, white outline and drop-shadow; or
(  Black text.
 
One wonders how using black text to correct a typical PDF document -- that's white with black text -- could ever be considered "annotation."
 
(NOTE that at the beginning of the process, when the user chooses a color, black is among the choices. So, despite your explicitly selecting a color, Skitch ignores your choice.)
 
One wonders, once again, if the developers actually use their own product. Because if anyone -- anywhere on the planet -- attempted to use Skitch to add corrections to a typical black-on-white PDF, he or she would encounter this issue and would find it problematic. As such, one wonders how something so glaring has yet to be fixed.  :-)

[soundsgoodtome 155]

P.S. There's also no way to select consistent sizes for text.

 

You adjust text size by grabbing a handle and resizing the box that surrounds the text, which shrinks or grows as you move the handle. But there's no way of determining what size you're choosing. So, if you need to make multiple annotations in one document and would like your text to be of uniform size, you're SOL unless you're happy with the default size (which is quite a bit larger than would be optimal for typical annotations).

[ldekay 16]

@soundsgoodtome

The plain text option is really meant to fill in PDF forms that are not created as such. It is not really meant to call attention to something in the PDF as the stylized text does.

You can use the size selector from the toolbar to select a standard text size rather than the resize handle which is free form. It is below the color picker.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

@soundsgoodtome

The plain text option is really meant to fill in PDF forms that are not created as such. It is not really meant to call attention to something in the PDF as the stylized text does.

You can use the size selector from the toolbar to select a standard text size rather than the resize handle which is free form. It is below the color picker.

 

Thanks!

 

It's odd, though, to limit users to either super-stylized text or plain black text. And the color picker does in fact exist. So, if we've chosen a color, why then ignore the choice? Why assume that no one would ever want colored text without the outline and shadow? (Conversely, I've never, ever fired up an app to add black text to a PDF. Not once! I know the option's there, but my tasks always involve annotation, where I use colored text to indicate corrections or other notes.)

 

I hope you'll consider removing this limitation.

 

Thanks again.

[ldekay 16]

That feature is definitely on our list for an upcoming release. 

Thanks,

Lester

[soundsgoodtome 155]

That feature is definitely on our list for an upcoming release. 

Thanks,

Lester

 

Thanks!