Coding PDFs
PDFs can be displayed similarly to the original PDF. The text on the PDF can be coded. PDFs displayed with QualCoder are not exact replicas, but are re-displayed with some limitations described below. PDF documents take a long time to read, and larger PDFs will take even longer to load, so you may wait a few seconds.
The screen is split into 3 adjustable panes. The left-hand side pane contains the file list and code tree. The middle pane shows the PDF representation. The right-hand pane shows the plain text extracted from the PDF.
Font size and zoom
The original fonts for the text are not used; it is too hard to extract and apply them from the PDF. Instead, the standard font used within QualCoder is used in the displayed PDF text boxes. There is a Font size adjuster to shrink the font size, to try to avoid text overlapping. It is set at -2, and -3 may be quite good also. The PDF can be zoomed in and out via buttons or key presses: Ctrl - and Shift +
Plain text extract must match
The plain text loaded when importing a PDF via Manage files must exactly match the plain text reloaded when the PDF is loaded to display it here. This means that PDFs loaded before version 3.4 will not match text correctly, and coding via selecting text boxes is switched off if the text lengths do not match. Similarly, if the plain text is edited in any way and the text lengths do not match, the coding via selecting PDF text boxes is switched off. Display of the coding stripes within the presented PDF page may also look incorrect.
Navigation
Move through the PDF pages by clicking on the page up-down arrows, or typing in a page number, using the buttons:
Extra functions
At the top of the window are several buttons. One exports an image of the PDF page. The magnifying glass button opens a window that shows the PDF elements used on the page.
Also, at the top of the window are several check boxes to show or hide PDF elements of Text, Images. A checkbox will display all text in black, which may be beneficial when light-coloured text is shown on a light background.
Right-hand pane
The right-hand side pane shows the plain text in the same way the text would be displayed in Code text. You can mark, unmark, memo the coded text, mark the coding as important, and annotate text here.
Central pane
To code, left-click and drag the mouse to select PDF text boxes. This can be tricky depending on the size and positions of the boxes. Then click a code to assign the selection to it. Further adjustments can be made on the right-hand plain-text pane using the shift left or right arrows to extend, or the alt left and right arrows to shrink the coded text section.
Right-click for the context menu on a coded segment. This menu allows you to add a memo, mark important, or unmark the coded segment.
Key presses
H Show or hide the top sections of the screen.
Ctrl F jumps to the text search box.
Ctrl Z undoes the last unmarked code.
Ctrl 1 Go to next file.
Ctrl 2 Go to the latest coded file.
Ctrl 4 View and edit file memo.
Ctrl 5 Get files list from attributes.
Ctrl 8
Ctrl 9 Show important coded segments. Toggles on and off.
Ctrl 0 Show Help page in browser.
In the PDF display area:
You can zoom in and out by clicking on the shown PDF and pressing the + or - keys. Press Q to quickly mark selection with the recent code. Press R to quickly mark selection with a choice of recently used codes.
In the plain text area:
A annotate - for current selection - text edit only
Q Quick Mark with code - for current selection
I Tag important
M memo code - at clicked position
O Shortcut to cycle through overlapping codes - at the clicked position
R opens a context menu for recently used codes for marking text
U Unmark at the selected location
V assign 'in vivo' code to selected text