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SpinKeeper
Participant
February 13, 2020
Answered

Automatic Strikethrough on Text Selections with Comment Tools Open (Bug?)

  • February 13, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 3689 views

I have noticed what seems to be a bug involving the comment tools.  The behavior causes strikethrough text to be automatically generated and interferes with single-key accelerators.  

 

How to Reproduce the Behavior:

  1. Open a PDF with selectable text.  
  2. Open comment tools so you see the specialized top and side menus. 
  3. Select some text with the cursor.  
  4. Type anything.  
  5. The selected text automatically gets strikethrough markup and your typing populates a comment bubble.  

 

Environmental Factors:

  • This behavior does not happen with the comment tools closed.  
  • This behavior also occurs if the cursor is still associated with a specific position in the text, in which case a zero-length strikethrough is generated with the comment.  
  • This behavior is independent of the "Enable text selection for Highlight, Strikethrough, and Underline" option.  
  • This behavior is independent of the "Use single-key accelerators to access tools" option.  
  • Behavior observed on Acrobat Reader DC version 2019.021.20056 running on Windows 7.  (Reproduced after updating to version 20.006.20035) 

 

If the markup were underline or highlight, I could almost believe that this was an intentional feature, but automaticly plastering documents with strikethroughs seems bizzaire.  I have not located a Preferences option that disables it.  Regardless, the behavior conflicts with single-key accelerators because this strikethrough object generation overrides the keyboard shortcuts.  For instance, typing "u" to switch to Highlight text fails to switch to the highlight tool, and instead redirects the letter "u" into the comment bubble.  

    Correct answer robert_5621

    Too lazy to read through this whole thread, but this thread helped me figure out how to use this tool correctly. It is not intuitive but seems to work the way the developers intended. 

     

    Essentially you need to ensure you have nothing selected, then you can press Shift+u to cycle through different tools until you get to the highlighter. Then any text you select with your cursor will automatically highlight.

    3 replies

    M
    Makzemann
    Participant
    October 2, 2021

    See also this bug report I made: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44234661-let-users-disable-type-to-create-comment-when-co

     

    And this bug report I support: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/37590253-bug-comment-bubbles-comments-in-comment-window

     

      R
      robert_5621
      Participant
      October 10, 2025

      I have this identical issue!

      R
      robert_5621Correct answer
      Participant
      October 10, 2025

      Too lazy to read through this whole thread, but this thread helped me figure out how to use this tool correctly. It is not intuitive but seems to work the way the developers intended. 

       

      Essentially you need to ensure you have nothing selected, then you can press Shift+u to cycle through different tools until you get to the highlighter. Then any text you select with your cursor will automatically highlight.

      Only Mehak
      Adobe Employee
      Only Mehak
      Adobe Employee
      February 17, 2020

      Hi SpinKeeper,

      Thanks for reaching out to us. We have analysed the problem mentioned by you and this is an existing feature . 

      First let us understand what the feature is:

      1. Selecting a text and typing something  is a keyboard shortcut to select the commenting tool "Add note to replace text". This behavior does not happen with the comment tools closed.

      2. Simply placing the cursor somewhere and typing the something is a keyboard shortcut to enable the commenting tool "Insert text at cursor".

      Now lets understand how the single key accelerator to select the highlight is supposed to work.

      3. Pressing "U" will select the highlight tool and it will be visually seen in the comments toolbar(when comment pane is open) or the Quick toolbar(when comment pane is not open ). After this, when you select any text , it will be highlighted. This takes into account the preference "Enable text selection for Highlight, Strikethrough, and Underline".

       

      So selecting a text and then typing 'U' is a keyboard shortcut for "Add Note to replace text" (Point no.1 above) and first selecting "U" then selecting text will lead to a highlight over the selected text(Point no. 3 above).

      Hope this clarifies your doubt. Please feel free to reach out in case you have any concerns.

       

      Thanks & regards

      Mehak Aggarwal

       

        M
        Makzemann
        Participant
        October 2, 2021
        quote

        So selecting a text and then typing 'U' is a keyboard shortcut for "Add Note to replace text" (Point no.1 above) and first selecting "U" then selecting text will lead to a highlight over the selected text(Point no. 3 above).

         

        By @Only Mehak

         

        When editing with Comments open this does not in fact work like you describe. When I open the comments and click U on my keyboard a comment appears at my cursor simply containing the letter "u". If I click somewhere after opening Comments and press U the same happens.

         

        However, the reason I'm in this thread is because after opening Comments and selecting text and pressing U that text will be edited with strike through. This is basically the opposite of what I want to achieve by pressing U: highlighting it. 

         

        What does work for me is, after opening the Comments, first clicking with the cursor on Strikethrough. After this I can select text and highlight it as will anmd keyboard-switch between other tools (such as V) and back to U (Highlight) no problem. Mind however that after cursor-clicking the highlight tool and thus having it selected, I do HAVE to select something to highlight it in order for proper further keyboard switching to work. Switching back to A from U without actually having highlighted something does not let me switch back to U (Highlight) again but instead, again, inserts a single "u" as a comment (mind that this comment is immediately closed and thus no further typing in the comment is even possible).

         

        This is clearly a bug; giving keyboard U different functions in different contexts is a design choice, sure. One I don't agree with but that's not up to me. However, letting U insert a single "u" as a comment after opening Comments does not make sense at all. Please fix it 🙂

        M
        Makzemann
        Participant
        October 2, 2021

        I continued testing and keyboard U does not add in a single "u" as a comment: it does let you keep typing however it does not update the text in the comment box until after deselecting the new comment. You only see the "u" but you still are typing more stuff. Another bug.

        AnandSri
        AnandSri
        Legend
        February 13, 2020

        Hi there!

         

        We're sorry for the trouble you had while using the comment tool and thank you for sharing the detailed information.

         

        Would it be possible to share a screenshot or a video recording of the current workflow and the issue as I tried reproducing the issue inhouse with the steps shared above, but the issue is not reproducible. 

         

        Also, would it be possible to share a sample PDF file with us through which you are able to reproduce the issue? If yes, please upload the file to the Document Cloud storage https://documentcloud.adobe.com/

        Generate the link and share the link with us in the private message only.

         

        Also, please collect the process monitor logs of the machine on which you are experiencing this issue. Download the process monitor tool, run the tool, reproduce the issue, generate the logs and save it locally. Then upload it to the Document Cloud storage and share the logs with us for further investigation. https://labs.adobe.com/downloads/acrobatmonitor.html

         

        Thanks,

        Anand Sri.

         

         

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