Skip to main content
S
StewartWeb
Participant
January 18, 2018
Answered

Highlight tool is not working in Acrobat Pro DC

  • January 18, 2018
  • 27 replies
  • 133468 views

I recently installed the recent Adobe Pro DC updates. A simple yellow highlighting feature used over the years is now seemingly impossible. When clicking the highlighter, the text areas show myriad border lines and when I try to put the cursor in front of text I want to highlight, huge blocks of asymmetrical shapes are highlight in yellow instead of just the word or sentence I am wanting to highlight.

I am also finding other simple edit functions are not working properly.

Please advise.

Douglas Stewart

[Personal info removed by Mod: Email]

    Correct answer AnandSri

    Hello StewartWeb

    We apologize for the inconvenience caused, as per the description above, Highlight tool is not working in Acrobat Pro DC, Is that correct?

    Please check for any pending updates of Acrobat Pro DC(if any) from Help>Check for updates and reboot the machine after the installation of updates.

    You can also repair the installation files of Acrobat Pro DC from Help>Repair installation(only for Windows), Reboot the machine after the repair.

    If the issue persists, please reset the preferences of Acrobat, to reset the preferences refer to How to reset Acrobat Preference settings to default.

    If the issue is specific to one PDF, please check the PDF properties once from File>Properties>Security and see commenting is allowed or not. If it's a secured PDF, you will not be able to add comments.

    You may also try to disable the Enhanced security option once only for testing purpose but enable it back after checking the functionality. To disable the enhanced security option, refer to Enhanced security setting for PDFs, Adobe Acrobat

    If the issue persists, please use Acrobat cleaner tool to remove the Acrobat Download Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner Tool - Adobe Labs  Reboot the machine and install the Acrobat Pro DC from Download Pro or Standard versions of Acrobat DC, 2017, XI, or X

    Let us know how it goes.

    Regards,

    Anand Sri.

    [Edited response]

    27 replies

    Show previous replies
    T
    Ted24617203axk2
    Participant
    May 26, 2022

    I quit Adobe for a few years, but have recently re-installed it. The hi-lighting feature works fine now. To iniate it; click the icon of a fountain pen near the left side of taskbar at the top of the screen. Then place your cursor at the start of hiliting to the end, and it should hilite all. If you left click on the hilited area, an popup appears with 3 options. Add note, change colour, and trash, are the options. Trash removes the hiliting, not the text.

    L
    LInda2225057713ir
    Participant
    May 26, 2022

    My highlight tool does nothing, it worked fine for years, now it does nothing at all.  Used to be able to tell once you selected the tool, now it does absolutely nothing when I click on it. I've tried all the "fixes" folks are suggesting with no luck.  I guess I'll have to uninstall and reinstall the program.  😞 

    J
    JZybach
    Participant
    May 16, 2022

    I understand this is old, but my edit tool don't work. I am completely uptodate and just to check I created a test document and I can't highlight in that either. 

    L
    LInda2225057713ir
    Participant
    May 26, 2022

    I have this same issue now.........   😞 

    M
    Michelle24314305h4vd
    Participant
    May 4, 2022

    Make sure you are actually in an Adobe product, that your document did not open in Chrome. 

    T
    Tim231182182cxv
    Participant
    February 11, 2022

    Hi,

     

    It's 2022 and this problem is still happening. Yesterday, i could highlight pdf documents with yellow by clicking the highlight tool, selecting what I want with it, done. Highlighted. Today, doesnt work. I tried finding solutions online but only found people have this same issue... A pdf document is a pdf document, why cant Adboe fix this once and for all? Now I've spent 16 minutes trying to find what is not available - a solution. Giving up on Adobe. Sad. 

    M
    Mama Shan
    Participating Frequently
    October 19, 2021

    I am experiencing the same with blobs of highlite and assymetrical shapes....what happened? This was working a few moths ago...I miss the highliter tool!

    L
    Leonard5CD0
    Participant
    August 27, 2021

    It can't be that hard to fix the glitch which prevents highlighting and is driving your users crazy. Just fix the damn thing and put out an update rather than having the users do your work for you.

     

    E
    Edwards iPad
    Participant
    February 26, 2021

    Hi-liter still doesn't work. I get the magnifier, but no hi-liting occurs as I drag my finger along the text. What's wrong?

     

    Why did you change the procedure? It is extremely annoying to constantly have to adapt to a new way of doing things, especially when they worked just fine.

     

    Maybe I should seek a different PDF reader. Maybe they won't change things up, all the time. I can't over emphasize how annoying this is. I wonder if your techies just make changes to keep busy, and chuckle over our incompetence, to keep pace.

    S
    sameproblemwithhighlighteruser
    Participating Frequently
    February 26, 2021
    I agree with your frustration. I finally called their technical help and got it to work. Highlighting should also not generate a separate comment. Highlighting is common enough. They make it so hard to do. Frustrating. On the other hand, there is nothing that appears to work as well as Adobe Acrobat Pro.
    S
    sameproblemwithhighlighteruser
    Participating Frequently
    May 23, 2020

    I just bought the monthly subscription. Attorney. Working fine. Then the same problem! Worked with two adobe techs for over one hour. No solution. You would think they would be aware of this problem. Adobe says it can't help me untilo higher level techs perhaps are available on Monday. I am not a tech. This should have been solved before. I will keep researching community solutions. It would be ironic that the solution will be found here, but not from adobe techs. More than annoyed.

      TABulger
      TABulger
      Participant
      June 2, 2020

      I had no problems with highlighter tool until I purchased a new computer and I'm now on Windows 10. A solution I saw above worked! Print - do not select Adobe PDF; DO select Save as PDF. This worked.

      I can't test the download file b/c of the system I'm in won't download.

      Good luck.

        S
        sameproblemwithhighlighteruser
        Participating Frequently
        June 2, 2020
        I am glad my suggestion was helpful to you. A higher level tech called me yesterday. I may have caused part of the problem. Apparently in taking documents from the web Never Print to PDF because that flattens the pdf and highlight won't work on a flattened document. Instead download as Adobe PDF (best) instead of print to pdf which I had been doing to fix the problem. Allegedly save is a better command than print. Also just to make sure, download again adobe pro, and be sure when Acrobat DC is installed the default setting for opacity is set at 100% not 0%.--that can bring the highlighted color back. I also like to highlight without it showing up as a comment. It used to be the old highlight feature in adobe did not have highlight show up as a comment. Usually highlight need not be something to clutter commenting column. According to tech this could not be fixed currently.
        B
        BethAM
        Participant
        February 10, 2020

        There are NOT two different highlighter tools.  The difference is that if the document has been OCR'd, the highlighter works in regular block text.  If the document has not been OCR'd the exact same tool is a free-form draw, that may or may not snap to a straight(er) line once you've drawn it.  If you don't want to look like you were highlighting after a few glasses of wine, just OCR your document, then highlight.  Once the document is OCR'd you'll be able to highight individual words or blocks of text in their entirety.  I have a document where some of the text OCR'd properly and some didn't, and in the same document the OCR'd portions highlight in blocks or straight lines, and the parts that didn't OCR properly (becuase someone marked over them) use the same highlighter tool in free-form (drunken) mode.

        G
        ghislainen52006259
        Participant
        October 9, 2019

        HI! I had the same problem. when I clicked on the colour 'bucket' to change the colour the opacity slide at the bottom of the colour palette was set at 0%!!! When I moved the slide towards the 100% end the colour on the highlighted text appears!! SUGGESTION: When Acrobat DC is installed the default setting for opacity is set at 100% not 0%.

          Show more replies
          Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
          Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices