Measure Commands

The Measure commands enable you to measure distances and areas of objects in PDF documents. The measure commands are especially useful when you need to know the distances or areas associated with objects in a form or computer-aided design (CAD) drawing, or when you want to measure certain areas of a document before sending to a professional printer. The measure commands are available to Reader users only if the PDF creator enables measuring functionality.

When you use a measure command, the command dialog box displays the measurements of the line segments you draw.

Measure the Distance

• Choose Comment > Measure > Distance. 

• While measuring the distance, you can specify whether to show the default leader on both side of the measurement points or not in Measuring Preferences. Click the first point, move the pointer to the second point, and click again. If you choose to use the default leader, move your mouse to determine the leader length, and then click on the document again to finish measuring. The measurements will appear on the page.

    Note: You can also choose to complete or cancel measurement by right-clicking and choosing options from the context menu.

    After you select the measuring tool, the Comment Format tab appears, which allow you to calibrate the scale ratio, snap measurement, export measurement markup, etc. 

•  To calibrate the scale ratio for your document for an accurate result, define the measurement value and select the appropriate unit in the Calibration group, and then click Apply to Current Page or Apply to All Pages to apply your custom measurement scale ratio to the current page or all the pages of the PDF file.

• By default, the measurement results, measurement markups, and rulers will be shown in Foxit Reader. To hide this information, please uncheck the relevant option(s) under the Setting group.

  Ø  Show result information: shows the measurement results (including current measurement, delta values, and scale ratio) on a small panel in Foxit Reader.

  Ø  Measurement markup: shows the line you draw as a comment. When this option is checked, you can add a label to measurement markups either by using the one specified in measuring preferences or inputting a new one in the Add Label box. The label for Distance markup will be shown in the distance measurement line, while the label for Perimeter and Area markups will be shown in their pop-up notes. When you put the pointer over the measurement markups with the Hand command selected, you can also view the measurement result and label.

  Ø  Rulers: shows the rulers on the page. 

• Snap: While measuring objects, you can choose any of the options to snap to a particular point along an object for more accurate measurements.

Ø  Snap to Endpoints : snap the measurement to the endpoint of a line.

Ø  Snap to Midpoints : snap the measurement to the midpoint of a line.

Ø  Snap to Paths : snap the measurement to the nearest point on the path.

Ø  Snap to Intersections: snap the measurement to the intersection point of two paths.

•  Choose Export to Excel to save all the measurement information in your PDF to a CSV file. 

Work on the Measurement Markup

After you complete the measurement, you are able to do further operations; such as move, resize, flip, and even work on it the way you work on comments.

Move the Measurement Markup

• With the Hand command or Select Annotation command selected, click the measurement markup you want to move.

• Place the cursor over the object when the pointer changes into  , hold and drag the mouse to move it to the intended place.

Change the Length and Orientation of the Line Segment

• With the Hand command or Select Annotation command selected, choose one of the resize corners , and you will see the pointer change into  .

• Hold and drag the mouse to change the length and orientation of the line segment.

Flip the Measurement and Annotation

You can reverse measurement and annotation of the object you draw.

                      Before flipping                                                                After flipping

•  Select the Hand command or Select Annotation command.

•  Right-click the object you draw > select Flip.

Add, edit, move, or delete the measurement label

Measurement labels will be added and shown in the measurement markups as you specified in Measuring Preferences or as what you set while adding a measurement markup. If a measurement markup does not contain a label, you can easily add a label to it with Foxit Reader. For existing labels, you can also edit, move, or delete them. Steps are as follow:

•  Select the Hand command or the Select Annotation command.

•  To add a label to a measurement markup without label: right-click the measurement markup > select Add Label > input the label > click OK. 

•  To edit an existing label: right-click the measurement markup > select Edit Label > input the label as desired > click OK. 

•  (For distance measurement markup only) To move the label as well as the measurement result shown on the distance measurement markup: click on the text shown on the markup to activate the text cursor > drag the label directly to a desired position.

•  To delete a label: right click the measurement markup > select Delete Label.

Work on Measurement Markups as Comments

The measurement markups can also be used as comments. You can set the status, open popup notes, delete them, reply to the markups, change the properties, and set the current properties as default.

Note: To show measurement markup and the measurement results, right-click on the object you draw, and choose Properties > Appearance > then check Show text in line.

Change the appearance of measurement markups

Foxit Reader provides two ways to change the appearance of measurement markups: through the Comment Format context tab and via the Properties dialog box. If you change the appearance through the Comment Format context tab, Foxit Reader will save the properties and apply them to any new measurement markups as well. If you change the appearance via the Properties dialog box and do not check Set Current Properties as Default option in the dialog, Foxit Reader will only apply the properties to your currently selected markup.

1. Change the appearance through the Comment Format context tab

• Select the Hand command or Select Annotation command.

• Click the measurement markup that you want to change the appearance, and then the Comment Format context tab will appear on the ribbon. 

• Do any of the following as needed:

Ø  Change the line color: Select one of the preset colors from the box, or click Line Color and then choose a desired color from the color palette.

Ø  Change the opacity: Click Opacity, and then drag the slider to change the opacity.

Ø  Set the fill color: Click the fill color button, then choose a desired color from the color palette.

Ø  Change the line width: Click the line width button, and then select a desired value.

Ø  Change the dash type: Click the dash type button, and then select a dash type as needed.

Ø  Change the shape for the start/end of the line: Click Start of line or End of line, and then select a desired shape. 

2. Change the appearance via Properties dialog box

• Select the Hand command or Select Annotation command.

• Right click the measurement markup that you want to set the appearance, and then select Properties from the context menu. 

• In the Properties dialog box, do any of the following, and then click Close:

Ø  Click the Appearance tab to change options such as the color, opacity and type of border used. The type of the measurement command selected determines which options are available.

Ø  Click the General tab to change the author’s name and subject of the comment. Under the General tab, you can also see the creation/modification time of the measurement markup.

Ø  Click the Review History tab to see the history of changes people have made to the status of a measurement markup during a review. 

Ø  Check Locked at the bottom of the Properties dialog box to prevent the measurement markup from being altered or deleted.

Ø  Check Set Current Properties as Default at the bottom of the Properties dialog box to set the current properties as the default for measurement markups.