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michaeldifeo
New Participant
May 28, 2016
Answered

How do i neatly highlight text in Acrobat?

  • May 28, 2016
  • 21 replies
  • 88900 views

Hi, I'm wondering if something has changed in the program.  In the past i was able to click and drag over pdf text (after it was converted) to neatly highlight blocks of text.  Now, the highlight tool is operating freehand and it's making my documents messy.  Is there a setting or way to change it back? 

Thanks for any assistance!

    Correct answer Nitish_kumar1

    Hi michaeldifeo,

    The highlight tool is improved in the latest release and now you can highlight even on Scanned Pdf and images.

    On Scanned pdf and images the highlight will work same as freehand with a new cursor (Ball shape)  icon to identify it . For normal Text  highlight will work in old manner with a different cursor icon (I shape) when you hover mouse on text.

    Please reply  back if you see any issue.

    Thanks

    Nitish

    21 replies

    N
    Nitish_Sabar0781
    New Participant
    October 17, 2024

     

    ls_rbls
    ls_rbls
    Adobe Expert
    April 8, 2024

    Interestingly, I don't see this problem in the acrobat Mobile App.

    T
    Tucker36584849ap12
    New Participant
    April 7, 2024

    ADBODE WANTS YOU TO ENHANCE THE SCANNED IMAGE.

    THEY WANT THE DATA FOR THEIR AI.

    THE HIGHLIGHT TOOL DOES NOT HAVE A SQAURE OR STRAIGHT LINE OPTION SO YOU HAVE TO SCAN TO RECOGNIZE TEXT.

    IT IS INTENTIONAL.

    WORST HELP FORUM EVER!

      C
      cherryp2831148
      New Participant
      November 23, 2022

      I'm using Win10, Adobe Acrobat 8.x 1.7 PDF version, I saved a PDF file in my hard drive to read.  Some setences that I need to hightlight. It does not work.  What setup should be changed to have the hightlght working.  To edit text, add text, and to draw a line, stemp signature all are working, except highlght text.  To draw a red lines looks real mass, is not straight line.  I would like to see yellow hightlight on each sentence.  Is anyone can help me, please.  Thank you very much.

      bone79
      bone79
      New Participant
      March 25, 2021

      Hi All

      Totally agree, until Adobe can find the resources to overcome this issue (if they haven't already) I found this solution which you may like

      https://www.dcmembers.com/skrommel/download/draglock/

       

      simple app which allows you to hold down the windows key and constrain the mouse to horizontal/vertical lines in anywhere within windows.

       

      I hope it helps

       

      Thanks

        T
        TXCraig
        New Participant
        January 29, 2020

        Obviously this "improvement" was made by someone who has never had to use their own product in a business envrionment.

          S
          skillful_partner5E41
          New Participant
          January 26, 2020

          Hey, Adobe.

          The first complaint abt the highlighting tool was dated 2016. It's now 2020 and the problem still hasn't been resolved.

          What gives? Aren't you supposed to be paying attention to users' feedback?

          WE DON'T WANT THE BLOODY BALL. WE WANT TO HIGHLIGHT TEXT, A PARAGRAPH AT A TIME AND NOT WITH A BLEEDING PENCIL THAT CAN'T DRAW STRAIGHT LINES.

          When do you intend to sort this out?

          Thank you.

            ls_rbls
            ls_rbls
            Adobe Expert
            January 26, 2020

            Hi,

             

            You'll get a better chance of voicing your request using the wishform rather than the user to user  community support forums https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html&ved=2ahUKEwiu5M681aDnAhXXLc0KHVOvDAAQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1m5x_nDMzu4uBdusYMcT48&cshid=1580021198279 

            W
            Wendi M.
            New Participant
            June 16, 2020

            Nice.  "you'll get a better chance of voicing your request using the wishform rather than the user to user community support forums" and the link is broken...takes me to another page, and gives me an error 404.  

             

            Instead of replying back to us with the "script" answers that you're given, it would be nice if you could actually help us, since I believe that is your job.  

             

            I have tried every single suggestion here, and am still unable to make a straight line with highlight.  I know how to change the color and width (by the way, it's really stupid that you can't make those changes until AFTER you've applied the highlight), and to no avail.  I have used the arrow next to the hand, to draw a box, and clicked on the highligher, then the box goes away, and there is no highlight.  Really getting frustrated, and it looks like this issue has been going on since 2016!!  People pay good money for Adobe Pro, so it seems you all would care a little more, and would be our "voices" to management or development or whichever team is over the highlight "feature".  Guess Adobe is just too big to care about how their customers feel about the tools.  Adobe used to be so intuitive, powerful and easy to use...it's really a shame what has become of the software.

             

            And as far as I can tell, Adobe has completely made the highlighter unusable except for individual words, and therefore I will be looking for another PDF editor that actually listens to their customers, and has the tools available that we need...and that we thought we were getting with Adobe.  

             

            Thanks for absolutely no help at all...except touting the "improvements" that have been made.  These are not improvements...try using them yourself, they don't work.  You may want to rethink what you are doing, Adobe.

              R
              ryanh16817506
              New Participant
              November 4, 2019

              This is a terrible flaw, Adobe really needs a competitor so that we can hold them accountable with our dollars. Literally all it would need to be is a shift click. Now I'm going to try and do my work in Indesign instead, this is slowing me down and costing me time. Fix your stuff Adobe!

                Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
                Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
                Brainiac
                November 4, 2019

                Make sure you're using the correct Acrobat tool to select text and apply the highlighter to it.

                • Use the black pointer/selection tool in the basic toolbar. It's next to "Michael Jackson's glove."
                • The text needs to be live, editable (and selectable) text, not graphical text.
                • If it's graphical text, you'll need to OCR it with Acrobat's Enhance Scans tool.

                |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
                A
                Anonymous
                October 24, 2019

                This is not an improvement!  No one can freehand neatly.  The documents look like a mess.  In addition the color has changed to orange.  Adobe is slipping badly.  I've resisted Nuance, but after this latest "improvement", I guess I'm forced to change.

                  D
                  Diego232714501o5o
                  New Participant
                  September 19, 2022

                  Thank you for the mention of Nuance.  I'll have to check it out.
                  It's very frustrating to have "improvements" imposed and then have resistance to negative

                  feedback.  

                  D
                  dreww30321656
                  New Participant
                  May 19, 2019

                  Can someone from Adobe answer this question already?  I've used Adobe Pro for years, and what most of us need to do is highlight texts, not draw yellow clouds in shapes we can't control.  How do I just highlight text sequentially by moving from left to right along a line, like every other program in the universe can do?  Did someone create the new program while on acid?  The Default should be to highlight text, not huge swaths of space.  PLEASE ANSWER IN ENGLISH, AND LIST THE STEPS, PLEASE!

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