Highlighter is free or paid

​Hi @Adept_thinkinga09b ,

Hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

Just to clear up the free vs. paid question first: highlighting text is a basic annotation tool and is included in the free version of Acrobat Reader Mobile; you don't need a paid plan for it. So if it's not working, that points to something else going on rather than a plan restriction.

A few quick questions to help narrow it down:

• Are you on iPhone/iPad or Android, and what happens exactly when you try to highlight? Does nothing happen at all, or does it select the wrong thing?

• What is the version of the Acrobat App you are using? Tap the profile icon > About Acrobat, update it to the latest version available on the App Store or Play Store, then reboot the device once.

• Is this happening on one specific PDF or every PDF you open?

• Did this PDF come from a scan, or was it originally a Word/other document?

While you check those, here's what usually causes this:

1. The PDF is a scanned image: if the file was scanned rather than created from a text document, there's no real selectable text underneath, so highlighting can't grab anything. Acrobat's OCR feature (in the paid version) can convert it to real text, but the free Reader can't.

2. The PDF has security restrictions: some PDFs are locked by their creators to prevent commenting/editing. You can check this on a desktop under File Properties (Ctrl, Cmd+D) > Security, if you have access to a computer.

3. You're in the wrong mode: make sure you've tapped the pencil/comment icon first, or try a long-press directly on the text to bring up the highlight option.

Let us know the answers above and whether any of these match what you're seeing, and we can dig in further.

~Amal