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August 21, 2025
Answered

"Read Out Loud" Feature in Adobe Breaks Text Selection Tool on macOS

  • August 21, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 240 views

The "Read Out Loud" feature has a critical bug that makes it impossible to read selected text. After activating "Read Out Loud," the text selection tool becomes completely non-functional, even though the UI indicates it is active and the cursor appears as an I-beam. This prevents the primary use case of having a specific portion of the text read aloud. The PDF file itself is a valid, text-recognized document where selection and commenting work perfectly fine before the feature is activated.

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Open any valid PDF document where the text is selectable (i.e., not an image-only scan).

  2. Confirm that the "Selection Tool" is working correctly by highlighting a sentence.

  3. Go to the menu View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud.

  4. Attempt to use the "Selection Tool" again to highlight any text on the page.

Expected Result: The user should be able to freely highlight any portion of the text. Upon selection, the "Read Out Loud" feature should begin reading that specific selection aloud.

Actual Result: The text selection tool becomes completely disabled. It is impossible to click and drag to highlight any text. The only way to restore the selection functionality is to deactivate "Read Out Loud" from the View menu or restart the application. This makes it impossible to have a specific text selection read aloud.

Correct answer Meenakshi_Negi

Hi ulysses_7897,

 

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

 

We tried to reproduce the behavior. However, it works fine on our end. Ensure that the application is updated to the latest version. 

Try reinstalling the application using the following steps:
-Remove the application and run the cleaner tool (https://adobe.ly/4mw8xsG).
-Reboot the machine
-Install Adobe Acrobat from the following page: https://adobe.ly/460uzOd.

 

If you still experience the issue, please share the screen recording of what happens. Also, please share the Acrobat and OS version currently in use.

It would be helpful if you could share the file in which the issue occurs. We will try to replicate the behavior in the same environment. 

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi

1 reply

Meenakshi_Negi
Meenakshi_NegiCorrect answer
Legend
August 21, 2025

Hi ulysses_7897,

 

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

 

We tried to reproduce the behavior. However, it works fine on our end. Ensure that the application is updated to the latest version. 

Try reinstalling the application using the following steps:
-Remove the application and run the cleaner tool (https://adobe.ly/4mw8xsG).
-Reboot the machine
-Install Adobe Acrobat from the following page: https://adobe.ly/460uzOd.

 

If you still experience the issue, please share the screen recording of what happens. Also, please share the Acrobat and OS version currently in use.

It would be helpful if you could share the file in which the issue occurs. We will try to replicate the behavior in the same environment. 

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi