Skip to main content
L
lindad34092833
Participating Frequently
July 30, 2015
解決済み

Can't select block of text

  • July 30, 2015
  • 返信数 22.
  • 228948 ビュー

I have updated to Adobe Acrobat DC and can no longer select blocks of text in pdfs. I have the select tool active, I am trying to select a whole sentence to highlight. I am using a pdf in which I have previously been able to perform this function. I am trying to place the curser at beginning of sentence and drag to the end of the sentence to select whole sentence before I highlight it.  I can no longer do this WHY? It's driving me mad.

Hoping someone can help

      解決に役立った回答 JohnAR

      It might be a scanned copy, Not all PDFs are created by following general norms, creating a PDF file from scratch, or converting an existing text document into PDF format. Sometimes, scanned images are bundled and merged into a PDF file. Such a file can be described as a scanned PDF. They differ from standard PDFs in that editing them is usually not possible.

       

       If so, use OCR to convert it into a regular file. Here's how:

      1. Visit PDF24 or a similar site that uses OCR to recognize the text in files.
      2. Click on the Choose files button.
      3. Upload the scanned PDF file.
      4. Allow the tool to complete its processing.
      5. Download the converted version of the PDF file.

       

      This has worked for me whenever the provider of the original PDF wasn't aware of the difference between scanned PDF's and "regular" PDF copies.

       

      HTH, JohnR

      返信数 22

      D
      defaultxtnyp286f668
      Inspiring
      June 24, 2024

      If you fix this issue Adobe will just send an update that breaks it again.  Adobe programmers are no good when it comes to doing anything with text.  The simple universal avility to select text is beyond them.

      P
      Paul28315305jqvc
      Participant
      February 8, 2023

      Hi

      I too was having all sorts of issues and none of the great suggestions here seemed to work for me. For some reason, if I go to the 'downloads' folder and right click and then choose to "open with Adobe Acrobat Reader 2020", which is the first option in my list, the document then allowed me to select text!  Weird!

       

      J
      JohnAR解決！
      Participant
      March 8, 2023

      It might be a scanned copy, Not all PDFs are created by following general norms, creating a PDF file from scratch, or converting an existing text document into PDF format. Sometimes, scanned images are bundled and merged into a PDF file. Such a file can be described as a scanned PDF. They differ from standard PDFs in that editing them is usually not possible.

       

       If so, use OCR to convert it into a regular file. Here's how:

      1. Visit PDF24 or a similar site that uses OCR to recognize the text in files.
      2. Click on the Choose files button.
      3. Upload the scanned PDF file.
      4. Allow the tool to complete its processing.
      5. Download the converted version of the PDF file.

       

      This has worked for me whenever the provider of the original PDF wasn't aware of the difference between scanned PDF's and "regular" PDF copies.

       

      HTH, JohnR

        S
        soniame
        Participant
        April 1, 2023

        This FINALLY worked for me!!! I've done everything to try to fix this issue and your recommendation/answer did it! THANK YOU SOO MUCH!

          L
          LSTC
          Participant
          October 26, 2022

          I tried all of these things, with no luck. Here's what solved it for me. There was an invisible text box of some kind on top of the actual text boxes I wanted to edit. It looked like the text boxes were joined or something. I cright-clicked a blank spot and selected "Edit a PDF" and was able to click and remove the conjoined box. I then recreated the boxes I needed.

          V
          Vicki25853327o2k3
          Participant
          August 30, 2022

          Yep, this solution does not work for me either.  I started my troubleshooting with Microsoft BECAUSE, I only have this problem with Microsoft PUBLISHER generated PDFs.  When I save a Publisher file as PDF, I simply cannot select text.  Just one word or line, never whole paragraphs.  The Arrow pointer will not change to the Text Selector pointer.  Further experimenting with PDFs created by WORD and POWERPOINT, I have found I can indeed select text as normal in Adobe.  I also found this problem occurred when opening PUBLISHER generated PDFs in browsers  (CHROME and MS EDGE and FIREFOX).  PDFs generated in WORD and POWERPOINT (I didn't bother tryng EXCEL) all opened in CHROME and EDGE where I was able to successfully select as much text as I liked in ALL of these browsers.  So that lead me to believe it's a Microsoft problem.  Upon speaking to Microsoft Help staff, they believe it's Adobe's problem BECAUSE they found in Adobe's Acrobat Reader DC that in the Adobe Export PDF tab, where the dropdown menu gives you the various document formats to convert to (ie. *docx, *doc, *rtf, *xlsx, *pptx, *jpg, *tiff and *png) there is NO option to export to PUBLISHER(*pub) so Microsoft believe this is now an Adobe problem and I'm to speak to them.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't - I still have this problem and no solution yet.

          sims1970
          sims1970
          Participant
          June 16, 2022

          I have a macbook pro. Go to Preferences => General, and unselect the box saying "Make Select tool select images before text." Took me weeks to figure this out.

          M
          mereditha29747516
          Participating Frequently
          January 13, 2022

          I've been having this problem too, super frustrating. Inexplicably, on some documents the select tool won't select text, just the image. Just found a solution!

          From preferences menu select general tab - make sure make select tool select images before text is unchecked.

          Guessing it happens only if text is on top of an image.

           

           

           

            M
            Michal22697359sf8f
            Participant
            January 17, 2022

            Thank you!  Seems that the security settings aren't relevant to the text selection and I have turned them back on.

            M
            Michal22697359sf8f
            Participant
            January 19, 2022

            Brief update, my issue came back despite all the above settings changes.  I often "print to PDF" and have been in the past, however Adobe no longer auto-recognize text when "print to PDF" even if whole document is text. What I have to do is "save to PDF", text is recognized and selectable at that point. 

            S
            silvano0D4C
            Participant
            December 26, 2020

            It helped for me. Coasted me 1 hour googling. Tx Adobe for this nice feature. Does it really make sense to disable the 90% use case ?

              S
              Sidrah5C77
              Participant
              December 4, 2020

              Thank you so much Jonk!! I tried everything, even bought a new Adobe membership, and the only thing that worked what was you just suggested. You are a saviour! Thank you!

              M
              Manuquick
              Participant
              June 29, 2020

              Does not work for me. I installed Reader DC, because I had the same issue withe the incorporated PDF viewer in Edge.Is the installation  of Edge the cause ?

              ls_rbls
              Community Expert
              ls_rblsCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              June 29, 2020

              It shouldn't be but in the case of using MS Windows,  I've read many many times in these forums that Microsoft has been sabotaging the ability for the users to be able change the default  PDF viewer/handler to Adobe Acrobat. 

               

              Also, in my very personal opinion and observation about this, it seems like Acrobat only provides integration with Internet Explorer 11. All the internet zones that are used in MS Windows are taken from the Internet Explorer browser, which in turn are also used by the Adobe Acrobat.

               

              This is a problem since Internet Explorer 11 is being phased out or not even supported by many websites out there that have switch to Mozzilla  and Chrome based  web browser engines.

               

              As a matter of fact a lot of problems disappear if you at install the new Microsoft Edge web browser, which is Chrome based (or just stick to Chrome browser).

               

              That said, however, the Acrobat PDF-Maker extension doesn't integrate as well in this new Edge browser as it would with Mozzilla Firefox or Internet Explorer which are fully supported by Adobe and provide just a few more extra features that are not found when this extension is installed in other supported modern web browsers.

               

              Like I said, these are my very personal notes, not necessarily  a fact, but it is worth to  continue trying different approaches.

               

              And to complement the correct answer above by jonk, the key thing here is that this topic can continue to get really complicated if you go into  other un-related issues to the main topic in this thread.

               

              For eample,  sandboxinng, enabling or disabling Protected View, Protected Mode at startup, and Security (Enhanced) preferences, together with the Trust Manager preferences, running a browsing process in containerized 32 bit apps,or choosing to enable or not 64 bit Enhanced Protected Mode in Internet Explorer, etc. etc.   etc. are things to keep an eye on.  This is true in environments where users need to access a MS Windows domain via DFS.

               

              If you read more on this particular topic here in the forums you will discover that this is a serious issue that could be  traced all the way back to 2012, specially in environments where different versions  MS Windows Servers enforce Group Policies on Acrobat and Reader applications in such domains;  users are reporting back to the forums complaining about getting stuck with being able to open only a file at a time (or not at all); probably  because of  how this built-in security was design from its origins and almost 10 years later looks more like a real bug that hasn't been addressed in any update(s) since then.

              M
              Manuquick
              Participant
              June 29, 2020

              Thank you for the answer, but it happens when I open a local file with the reader. Windows is not connected to a domain or group...

              C
              Curve
              Participant
              June 11, 2020

              Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou jonk.  You absolute star!  I've been getting so frustrated with this, as your clearly were.  Nothing fixed it - until your solution.  Why on earth does the default setting prevent you from highlighting text...?

              さらに返信を表示
              契約条件Accessibility statement
              Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices