How to navigate articles in PDFs

This article will tell you how to navigate PDF articles with Foxit PDF Editor

For PDF documents that include articles and arrange text content in multiple columns and across several pages, you may need lots of scrolling or zooming to navigate the articles. To make article viewing effective, the application allows you to define a navigational path (or an article thread) for an article in the document by marking out a series of boxes around the article content in the order you want the content to be viewed in. With article threads, you can skim through a document, focusing on a specific article and ignoring the rest, as you do in a traditional print newspaper or magazine.   

Define articles

To define an article, please follow the steps:

1.         Choose Edit > Add Article Box. The cursor changes into a Cross  automatically.

2.         Click and drag a rectangle around the content to be the first article box. A black rectangle appears around the content with a label, and the cursor changes into the article pointer .

The label for each article box is made up of the article number and the sequence number within the article. For instance, the first box for the first article in the document is labelled 1-1, the second box 1-2, the third box 1-3, and so on. And the boxes for the second article in the same document are labelled 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and so on.

3.         Repeat the operation in Step 2 to mark out the rest of article boxes followed. (Note: If you need to resize or move an article box during the article defining, you must end the article first.)

4.         When you have defined the entire article, press Enter to end the article.

5.         Type the information in the pop-up article property dialog box as needed and then click OK.

6.         Then in the Articles panel in the navigation pane you can see the article defined. The Articles panel lists all of the articles included in the document.

View articles

1.       To view the articles in the document, open the Articles panel in the navigation pane and do any of the following to start viewing:

·         Double-click the article you want to view.

·         Right-click the article you want to view and choose Read Article from the context menu.

·         Select the article you want to view and choose Read Article from the options menu in the upper right corner of the Articles panel.

2.       The pointer will change into  and you will be switched to the beginning of the article (the area of the first defined article box). The page view may zoom in or out automatically so that the current part of the article fills the screen, with the first line appearing in the upper left corner.

3.       During the article viewing, do any of the following:

·         Click in the article or press Enter to navigate to the area of next article box.

·         Shift-click in the article or press Shift + Enter to navigate to the area of previous article box.

·         Ctrl-click within the article to go to the beginning of the article.

4.       At the end of the article (the area of the last defined article box), the pointer will change into  and clicking in the article will return to the beginning of the article.

Note:

1.       Before viewing an article, make sure you have selected the Hand tool and the option Make Hand Tool read articles in the File > Preferences > General.

2.       You can select Hide After Use in the options menu in the upper right corner of the Articles panel to hide the panel after the article viewing starts.

Modify articles

You can rename and delete articles, move and resize article boxes, edit article properties, and more.

Rename articles

To rename an article, click the article name directly in the Articles panel and type a new name for it, or right-click the article and choose Rename to rename it.

Move and resize an article box

To move an article box, select the article box with the Add Article Box command. Then drag the box to the desired position.

To resize an article box, select the article box with the Add Article Box command. Then drag a handle of the box.

Note: To select an article box with the Add Article Box command, you need to click on the label of the box. When an article box is selected, you can see the selection handles  of box appear with a plus sign  at the bottom. After you select an article box, press Enter to jump to next box within the article; if the selected box is the last one within the article, press Enter to jump back to the first box of the article.

Delete an article or article box

To delete an entire article, do any of the following:

·         Select the article in the Articles panel and press Delete.

·         Right-click the article in the Articles panel and choose Delete.

·         With the Add Article Box command select any article box of the article in the document. Then right-click the selected article box and choose Delete. In the pop-up dialog box, choose Article to delete the article.

To delete an article box, select the article box you want to delete with the Add Article Box command. Then right-click the box and choose Delete. In the pop-up dialog box, choose Box.

After an article or an article box is deleted, the remaining articles or article boxes in the document will be automatically renumbered.

Edit article properties

You can edit the article title, subject, author, and keywords in the article property dialog box. To open the article property dialog box, do any of the following:

·         Select the article, and choose Properties… from the options menu in the Articles panel.

·         Right-click the article, and choose Properties… from the context menu in the Articles panel.

·         Double-click any article box of the article in the document with the Add Article Box command.

·         Select any article box of the article in the document with the Add Article Box command. Then right-click the article box and choose Properties… from the context menu.

Insert article boxes into an article thread

1.          With the Add Article Box command select the article box that you want to the new article box to follow in the document.

2.          Click the plus sign at the bottom of the box and the pointer changes into . Then you can click and drag a rectangle around the desired content to be the new article box. If you click without dragging, a prompt pops up telling you to click and drag out to create a new article box.

3.          (Optional) You can continue dragging to insert more article boxes as needed.

4.          Press Enter after you insert all the content you need.

5.          Then you can see the sequence number of the new box follows that of the box selected in Step 1, and all following article boxes are renumbered automatically.

Combine two articles

1.          With the Add Article Box command select any article box of Article 1 in the document.

2.          Click the plus sign at the bottom of the box and the pointer changes into .

3.          Ctrl-click any article box of Article 2.

4.          Then you can see Article 2 is appended to the end of Article 1, and all article boxes are renumbered automatically. In the Articles panel, the two articles are combined to one article named with the title of Article 1 by default. Rename the combined article as needed.