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I've been working on developing a tablet based inspection program on and off for the last couple of months. The inspection documents are currently on paper, printed from multi-layer pdfs, and the end game is to end up paperless with inspectors annotating the docs on the tablet and filling forms..
I originally attempted to use an Android based tablet, but discovered that no pdf annotation android app offered layer control, including Foxit. I finally gave up on the Android based idea and got a Dell Venue 8 Pro with Windows 8.1 installed, intending to use Foxit Reader as the pdf editor. Foxit Reader does run on the Venue with Win 8.1, but there is unfortunately a fatal flaw if you intend to do any annotating via the touch screen.
The flaw is, that if you select an annotation tool (say, the pencil), when you touch the screen, the operating system seizes focus from Foxit and interprets the "touch and drag" as a "single finger pan" gesture. Strangely, of your finger is describing a curve when you touch the screen, Foxit retains focus and draws the annotation, but if your finger is describing a straight line in any direction, Windows grabs focus and does a screen pan.
I contacted tech support about the issue, hoping there was a solution, but I got this reply;
"Sorry for the trouble. Now our program cannot support win8 tablet, so when you use Foxit Reader with the touch screen, you will get the issue."
Hopefully this post will save others a few days of research. I have located an application that has both layer control and does not have the "one finger pan" problem. It is "Bluebeam Revu", and it's looking like I will be purchasing it for the program.
No other application I tried fit the bill. They either had the "single finger pan" problem, or some other deal killer. Acrobat Pro treats groups of annotations as objects which will cause problems on a page with much drawing on it. One that came close but doesn't have layer control was "PDF Annotator".
I originally attempted to use an Android based tablet, but discovered that no pdf annotation android app offered layer control, including Foxit. I finally gave up on the Android based idea and got a Dell Venue 8 Pro with Windows 8.1 installed, intending to use Foxit Reader as the pdf editor. Foxit Reader does run on the Venue with Win 8.1, but there is unfortunately a fatal flaw if you intend to do any annotating via the touch screen.
The flaw is, that if you select an annotation tool (say, the pencil), when you touch the screen, the operating system seizes focus from Foxit and interprets the "touch and drag" as a "single finger pan" gesture. Strangely, of your finger is describing a curve when you touch the screen, Foxit retains focus and draws the annotation, but if your finger is describing a straight line in any direction, Windows grabs focus and does a screen pan.
I contacted tech support about the issue, hoping there was a solution, but I got this reply;
"Sorry for the trouble. Now our program cannot support win8 tablet, so when you use Foxit Reader with the touch screen, you will get the issue."
Hopefully this post will save others a few days of research. I have located an application that has both layer control and does not have the "one finger pan" problem. It is "Bluebeam Revu", and it's looking like I will be purchasing it for the program.
No other application I tried fit the bill. They either had the "single finger pan" problem, or some other deal killer. Acrobat Pro treats groups of annotations as objects which will cause problems on a page with much drawing on it. One that came close but doesn't have layer control was "PDF Annotator".
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