Remove text highlight from print output

Question

I have a document that had grown to 10mb, mainly due to repeated highlighting over the course of months, to the point of degrading performance in the document.

The compression utility was falling, and the solution was to print the document to a PDF file. This solution reduced the size of the document down to 3mb, a great resolution!

However, I am unable to delete highlighting in the new document. I can highlight over the already highlighted text in a different color, but the original color still shows through, and there is a halo of the original color that remains - in other words, the new color doesn't quite cover the old.

Is there a way to remove highlighs (or strike through, or underline) from the printed output?

Amal. · Answer

hi there

Hope you're doing well, and thanks for reaching out.

When you "print to PDF," it turns the whole file into a flat image. This means things like highlights, underlines, or strikethroughs are no longer separate items you can click on or remove. They become part of the page, so you can’t edit or delete them anymore.

Once the file is flattened like this, regular PDF tools won’t let you remove those markings.

Try the steps below and see if that works:

Use the original file (if you still have it): Try removing the highlights before printing to PDF. That way, you’ll get a clean version.
If you have Adobe Acrobat: You can try exporting the PDF to a Word document. If the highlights come through as editable text, you may be able to delete them there.

Let us know how it goes.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded