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How do I remove highlighting from a previously-created document in Adobe Acrobat DC?

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First let me say that I have read many posts on this topic and watched YouTue videos and none of them seem to work for the latest version of Acrobat DC. I created a document with some text highlighted in September 2015 using Acrobat DC and now in November of 2015, I cannot remove the highlighting no matter what I do. Sometimes I will see the "Delete Highlighting" option when I right click after selecting the text, but even when I select that option, it will not remove the highlighting.

Any ideas??? (I am definitely out of them!)

Thanks in advance for any assistance!!

try67Correct answer

Community Expert

Hi,

I highlighted the text, there was no association with a comment at anytime - I used a MSWord document when preparing the form and believe the highlighted text existed there, but I may have highlighted the text in the Acrobat form. (I can find the original MSWord doc and check, but it is on the old computer.)

No one else has access to the document or the Adobe DC account. I am not sure what you mean by flattening the document and I have not opened the Acrobat form with another application.

Thanks!

If you highlighted the text outside of Acrobat then you need to remove it there as well, and then create a new PDF.

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matthewv49061695

Participant

Thank you, jmd83706. This worked.

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STEPHAN22289986m1ea

Participant

Adobe Acrobat Standard

Edit Text

Right Click -> Arrange -> Send to Back

Right Click -> Cut

Right Click -> Delete

Right Click -> Paste

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STEPHAN22289986m1ea

Participant

Another option is to zoom-in which can help to grab the highlight that is below the text.

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Gillian26118208nd8s

Participant

I selected the contents of text box by double clicking within the text box, then right clicked. A list of options appeared and this list included "Delete Highlight" as the last option. I guess I wasn't right clicking correctly, the first time I tried it. Ended up here, tried again, and voila! Highlight Deleted.

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defaultj9zju55isi94

Participant

After a lot of tries, here is the easiest way I found to delete highlighting from text:

1. Right click on the highligting. If the you do not see "Delete" as one of the options, select "Properties".

2. In the bottom left corner of the "Highlight Properties" popup UNCHECK the "Locked" checkbox.

3. Then CHECK the "Make Properties Default" checkbox. Select "OK"

Now right click on the highlighting. You should now see "Delete" as one of the options. Also, if you left click on the highlighting, you will see the Trashcan icon. Clicking either Delete or the Trashcan should delete the highlighting, The left click menu also gives you a quick way to change the colors of highlighting without having to go back into the Properties menu.

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Liz229591569r4i

Participant

I totally have this issue. I even exported to MS Word to change the highlight. That didn't work either. The 'delete' option only works for the text not the highlighting and I am unable to navigate to Properties on the text box. I do have Pro DC version but am at a loss.

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Thom Parker

Community Expert

Can you post the PDF. How the higlight is removed depends entirely on the kind of thing that it is. We'll have to see the document to know that.

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Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

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noahB82C

Participant

ok, found the easiest way to do this. It turns out that our highlights are BEHIND (or under) the text box that you're editing/typing in. So what you have to do is click on and MOVE your text box, THEN when you move it out of the way, then simply hit "cut" or "delete" on the highlight portion. that will delete it. Then you can move your text box back.

Otherwise, you can't get to it.

You don't need to do all the other stuff that people have recommended.

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defaultbbc8n027od03

Participant

Low tech solution worked for me. Thanks!

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martyb26265147

Participant

Just had to deal with this problem and after poking around the internet I figured out a solution that doesn't need the original source document. Right-clicking the left-hand tool bar and selecting Content will pull up a hierarchy of every text and shape object in the document. Find the container for the highlighted text, expand it, and you should see at least one "Path" object. One of these will be the highlight, which you can just delete. You'll have to go line-by-line through the whole document but it'll work.

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Zopheus

Participant

Yes! Thank you so much!!! Go to the "Content" menu and then keep drilling down until you see the Container and then path, then delete.

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ks98837

Participant

Low tech solution - nudge text box to the right or left so the highlight is sticking out on side - then you can click on it and delete it and move the text box back where it belongs.

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PringleCSFD

Known Participant

This one worked for me - thanks!!!!!

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try67

Community Expert

Do you see the highlights as individual comments in the Comments List panel?

If so, they may be locked. Right-click one of them and selected Properties. If the "Locked" box is ticked, un-tick it and click OK.

Now try to delete it again.

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kmw83714Author

Participant

Hello, First let me say thanks for responding! Second, I probably should have provided more details, so here are a few that might explain my conundrum a bit better:

This document was created using Adobe Acrobat DC in September as I mentioned; what I left out is that I used the "Prepare Form" utility in Acrobat and highlighted some text for later attention (a placeholder of sorts).
The form is fillable and has a couple of buttons (Submit Form; Clear Form).
I saved the document to the cloud. After getting a new computer, I opened the form again to continue working on it. This was just last week in November. I mention the timing in case any updates were made to Acrobat in the interim.
I have no comments in the document; zero, zip, so locking doesn't seem to be an issue.
The problem now is that I cannot select the highlight itself - it seems to float as background color irrespective of any text, but Acrobat doesn't show any markup, watermark, image or any other type of object as existing in the document. The document doesn't seem to recognize the highlight as existing, but it certainly shows up in every mode (print, edit, prepare, preview, etc.).

If I've left anything out that might help, let me know. At this point, I could easily have re-created the form from scratch, but this is something I expect I will need to do in the future as well, so am hoping to discover the correct process to remove a highlight on a previously-created form.

Thanks much for your help!

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try67

Community Expert

So you're saying the files still contain the highlights but there are no comments in the Comment panel?

Did someone else open these files in a different application, or flatten them? This kind of thing does not happen by itself...

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