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mlm35209
Inspiring
April 20, 2016
Answered

Can Adobe create a faster way to change highlight and text-box colors?

  • April 20, 2016
  • 3 replies
  • 9473 views

Our office heavily utilizes Acrobat for its ability to change the color of comments and text boxes.

Each color signifies a certain action item, or group that needs to work on it. We need to change colors frequently as the status changes.

The current procedure for doing this is to right click an existing highlight, select properties, click on the color square, select the color palate, select the new color, close the color palate, and click "OK." This is clearly not optimal, and it was much easier in previous versions of Acrobat.

Would it be possible for Adobe to create a faster right-click functionality for changing the highlight or text box color?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer mlm35209

Activate the highlight tool and press ctrl-e.


Dear Bernd Alheit,Bernd Alheit

This is brilliant--thanks for the response!

I wonder why this feature so deeply hidden in Acrobat...?

It shouldn't require posting to a forum and 3 days to find!!

Thanks again,

Michael

3 replies

Participant
July 27, 2022

Great work-around!!!

You can also make your new highlight color the default.

Document Geek
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 21, 2016
mlm35209
mlm35209Author
Inspiring
April 21, 2016

Hi Document Geek,

The color palate on the Properties Bar was indeed a great feature of old Acrobat versions--this was when changing the color was easy. Unfortunately I think Adobe removed this feature several versions ago. If it's still around, I haven't been able to find it.

Adobe has replaced it's simplicity with the the 7-step process I described above.

If you know of a way to bring up the Properties Bar in Acrobat DC, I'd be indebted!

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 22, 2016

Activate the highlight tool and press ctrl-e.

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 20, 2016

You can make a feature request here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

However, it is possible to do it, but it requires using a script, like this one I've developed which allows you to easily and quickly switch between different highlighting colors, and it can also be adjusted to work with other commenting tools: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat/Reader -- Quickly Switch Between Highlighter Colors