How do I highlight text in a PDF comic?

I created a comic book using comic life deluxe on my MacBook pro, saved it as a PDF, and synced this comic to my iPad. I have the iPad 2. I tried looking up how to highlight text and add my own notes to text in a book titled iPad for dummies, I tried doing what that book tells me to do b/c I wish to highlight a passage in a speech balloon on one of the pages of this comic book that I created and add a note about this text in the balloon - but the instructions from the dummies book doesn't work.

how do I highlight text in this comic speech balloon and add my note about the text?

Thanks in advance.

It's very possible that, despite being represented as text, the content on the page was actually saved as a picture. In other words, despite looking like text, it's actually a picture of the text. For example, take a screenshot of my post - it looks like text but it's actually a visual representation of text.

The easiest way to test this is with Preview - try to highlight the text there to see if it works. I say this because it could very well be text but the application on the iPad may not see it that way.

vansmith said:

The easiest way to test this is with Preview - try to highlight the text there to see if it works. I say this because it could very well be text but the application on the iPad may not see it that way.

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How to I test with preview on my ipad?

You don't -- you move the file to your Mac and test it there.

chas_m said:

You don't -- you move the file to your Mac and test it there.

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Ok, I tested it on my mac - now what?

Did it work? Could you highlight the text in the comic?

vansmith said:

Did it work? Could you highlight the text in the comic?

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Not exactly, I didn't try this yet, but I will. But I did add a note about the text in preview on my Mac as you can see in my screenshot.

Did you want me to try highlighting the text on that comic page or to do what I just did as shown in the screenshot in case I cannot highlight that text?

I have no idea if the comments will sync over - I'll leave that up to you to test. As for the highlighting, yes, try it on the Mac. See if it works and if it doesn't, it's probably because it's a picture and not text.

vansmith said:

I have no idea if the comments will sync over - I'll leave that up to you to test. As for the highlighting, yes, try it on the Mac. See if it works and if it doesn't, it's probably because it's a picture and not text.

Click to expand...

Here are some more screenies of what I did to test it.







What do you think of these? I mean, what I did to test, how I did it to test for highlighting?

Regarding the synching it over, I'm going to try this next, and I'll let you know.

Edit - the note didn't synch over. But I found this PDF notes for ipad Am thinking about getting it but don't know if it's free or not - but I think it is free, isn't it?

So, no then. The PDF created by ComicDeluxe (or whatever you used) saves the result as an image, not selectable text.

AlienBZ said:

But I found this PDF notes for ipad Am thinking about getting it but don't know if it's free or not - but I think it is free, isn't it?

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Ummmmm

TattooedMac said:

Ummmmm

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Ok, so it's free. I tried d/l it onto my iPad thru my Mac but I think it disappeared somewhere either on my Mac or the iPad cuz I can't find it anywhere in the usual places, not even in downloads. Need I just try to d/l it to my iPad without going thru the Mac? I'm going to try this and I'll let you know.

edit - it d/l onto my iPad all right last night, but it stayed invisible until I went back to apple's website where I d/l it just now on my pad's safari and as soon as I touched install with my finger, it appeared and began installing on my iPad.

Now I'm going to try it out.

Edit 2 - I got the 320 version of PDF noted which has bugs. It says to update it to 321 so I tried going back to apple's website and updating it, but it woun't let me update - the update 321 link is grayed out - what do I do?

I can't make heads or tails of your post, really.

1. You can't download iPad apps to your Mac.
2. The iTunes Store cannot download anything BUT the latest version.
3. As it clearly says on the page, the latest version is 2.3.1 not 321, so I can only assume a typo or a momentary hit of dyslexia there (happens to us all).
4. Also as is (un)clearly stated in the description, there is a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version.

chas_m said:

I can't make heads or tails of your post, really.

1. You can't download iPad apps to your Mac.
2. The iTunes Store cannot download anything BUT the latest version.
3. As it clearly says on the page, the latest version is 2.3.1 not 321, so I can only assume a typo or a momentary hit of dyslexia there (happens to us all).
4. Also as is (un)clearly stated in the description, there is a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version.

Click to expand...

Well, it's advertised as v2.3.1, on the download page, but my iPad only downloads v2.3.0, unless apple is misrepresenting the truth, hiding the truth, or even lying about it, somehow my iPad only downloads v2.3.0 - what gives?

AlienBZ said:

Well, it's advertised as v2.3.1, on the download page, but my iPad only downloads v2.3.0, unless apple is misrepresenting the truth, hiding the truth, or even lying about it, somehow my iPad only downloads v2.3.0 - what gives?

Click to expand...

I don't think Apple is thought this morning, "Lets lie about that iPad App, the one the M-F member AlienBZ wants to dl. That will stuff up his day"

Point being i can't see Apple going out of there way to lie about things and more so that the MAS is just a container to hold all the Apps Developers submit to Apple. Its up to the Developer to put in the right .v number not Apple's problem.
Email the Developers and see what they have to say.

Cheers

TattooedMac said:

I don't think Apple is thought this morning, "Lets lie about that iPad App, the one the M-F member AlienBZ wants to dl. That will stuff up his day"

Point being i can't see Apple going out of there way to lie about things and more so that the MAS is just a container to hold all the Apps Developers submit to Apple. Its up to the Developer to put in the right .v number not Apple's problem.
Email the Developers and see what they have to say.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Gee, I thought Apple created this app. What do I do about the version? I don't know if I really, really have to email the devs (I don't even know who they are/what their email address is) - is it really that v2.3.0 is the free version and v2.3.1 is the paid version? I thought this app was 100 % free with no catches to it?

AlienBZ said:

Gee, I thought Apple created this app.

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I'm curious as to why you would think that.

On the screenshot provided by TM, you can see quite clearly -- directly below the name of the app -- the name of the company that made it.

I don't know if I really, really have to email the devs (I don't even know who they are/what their email address is)

Click to expand...

Also as you can see from the screenshot, there is a blue link just below the description (the part where it says this is an ad-supported version and that there is a paid version) that says (quoting): pdf-notes free for iPad (pdf reader/viewer support (my emphasis)

- is it really that v2.3.0 is the free version and v2.3.1 is the paid version? I thought this app was 100 % free with no catches to it?

Click to expand...

I don't mean to be rude, but really?? After reading the description of the app you still thought that??

My suggestion would be that you give up on this app (which seems cheesy, badly-written, bait-and-switchy and generally mediocre) and find another app if you really feel you need a separate PDF viewer (as I've mentioned before I think, the ability to read PDF files is built right into the OS via the mail program ...).

A highly-recommended alternative I've heard of is GoodReader, which also lets you store PDFs and Office documents as well. It's not free, but it isn't gotcha-ware either.

Also, for future reference and to avoid running into trouble with apps going forward, it really helps to read the description and information the developer provided on the page -- that's why Apple put those pages there in the first place. You'll quickly learn to discern between the meh-ware and the good stuff, which apps rely on in-app purchases or ads and which ones are genuinely no-catches free, and lots of other useful info. For any type of app you are looking for, there are generally several similar ones, so don't be afraid to do a little "comparison shopping" and check out the reviews both on the site and on app-centric websites like 148apps.com etc.

You can also always ask here if anyone has tried (app XYZ) and what they think of it. We'll tell you what we know, if anything.