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JGreg7
Known Participant
December 17, 2017
Question

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC - Unable to select text

  • December 17, 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 15992 views

Recently, in several versions of Adobe Acrobat pro (X, XI, DC), I have had an unusual text selection problem.  This seems to occur in documents printed with Acrobat, or scanned documents with recognized text.

The problem is that when trying to select the text in a document, the cursor changes to a tall version that selects a span of about 15 lines tall.  It is impossible to simply select one word. 

If the content is copied, the result is gibberish - like raw code.

This seemed to happen recently, and simultaneously in multiple copies of Acrobat Pro after a recent update.

Any ideas how to correct this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    E
    Eulipian!
    Participant
    October 30, 2021

    This is an Acrobat DC issue.  I can open and highlight a document in Acrobat XI as usual.  Select text, click highlight, bam, text highlighted.  DC won't even allow me to select text.  The work arounds suggested here are kind attempts to help, but DC is buggy and broken and Adobe does not care about it.  Having to print a text readable pdf to pdf again is not a solution.  It's proof we've been ripped off.  I'm reverting to XI and backcharging the DC purchase.

      H
      Henk22359975l5nm
      Participant
      December 22, 2021

      I also have the problems described.
      Does anyone know if Adobe is aware of the problem and is working on fixing it?

      A
      alanj73085092
      Inspiring
      September 14, 2021

      I've had the exact same issue for a couple months now and can't find a solution anywhere. I used to select text from pdf files all the time and then it just stopped working a couple months ago. It's doing exactly what you described. See video attached. Anyone else solve for this? All of the 'solutions' I see from other users either don't work or solve a different problem. It's just impossible to select a single line of text no matter what I try. Any ideas? What happened that this doesn't work like it's worked forever???

        R
        rb13
        Participant
        September 15, 2021

        This only seems to affect printouts of web documents. I've been using the "Microsoft Print to PDF" printer since this issue started, but recently it's doing the same thing - unable to select text without OCR'ing the document, only wide swaths of the page are selected. I've since switched to the "Save as PDF" option and it's still printing web documents properly for now.

         

        Is this an Adobe, browser setting, or HTML issue? I wish someone at Adobe would seriously look into this problem.

          try67
          Community Expert
          try67Community Expert
          Community Expert
          September 15, 2021

          It's an issue with how the file is generated, so in this case it's a Microsoft issue.

          M
          Melanie5E85
          Participant
          April 28, 2021

          I have been wrestling with just trying to select single lines of text, it will only select groups.  All I want to do is highlight a single line of text it should not be this difficult.  It used to work seamlessly. I have tried doing this in the online Acrobat, in Acrobat Pro, and Acrobat Reader.  Very frustrating. I'm a teacher and ever since my district purchased seperate Acrobat licensing the program no longer works.  Even though I have the full blown CC license thorough the district.

           

          R
          rb13
          Participant
          February 20, 2020

          We've been having the same issue for quite a while, if I understand the problem as stated. The cursor selects large blocks of the document instead of the text, and copying and pasting gives gibberish. This has been happening on web pages that I print as PDF with Acrobat Pro - no OCR involved. I've tried IE, Edge, and Chrome and all have the same issue. (I can "save as PDF" from the browser and the resulting documents are fine - text can be selected - but I prefer to print in greyscale, through the print dialog, using Acrobat.)

           

          I've found that if I use Adobe to print the document a second time as a PDF, the text is selectable on the second version. Try opening a bad document, press Ctrl-P, select Adobe as the printer, give it a unique name, and see if the new file works.

            I
            icns
            Participant
            April 14, 2020

            The same thing has been happening to me as well -- large cursor appears with a large blue block of selection, instead of individual text selected. Yes, re-printing it to PDF does fix the problem and I am now able to select individual words, so thanks for the tip! However, wish there was a more permanent fix for this. We shouldn't have to do this.

            R
            rb13
            Participant
            April 14, 2020

            I should have updated my posting from February as I discovered recently that my "solution" doesn't work. After reprinting the PDF, it APPEARS that you can select text, but if you copy and paste into a document, it's still gibberish. I had just assumed it was selecting the text properly, but it's not. Sorry about that.

            jane-e
            Community Expert
            jane-eCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            December 17, 2017

            JGreg7  wrote

            Recently, in several versions of Adobe Acrobat pro (X, XI, DC), I have had an unusual text selection problem.  This seems to occur in documents printed with Acrobat, or scanned documents with recognized text.

            Who did the OCR and with what settings?

            If the user chose Searchable Image, that is what you get. The image is is front and this is great for law offices and archival purposes where they need to search the PDF but it is not selectable or editable.

            If you OCR and choose Editable, Acrobat converts it to editable text with a typeface and may change the original look of the document.

            Does that help?

            Open two copies of the same scanned image and OCR it twice with different settings and compare to see the difference.

              cricket1001-2
              cricket1001-2
              Known Participant
              November 21, 2019

              Thanks for your reply.  I have the same problem with not being able to select text because I can only use the circular cursor.  I want to highlight important pdfs but not be able to change anything in the pdf.  I have legal documents that must be the original text and format. I just would like to highlight some text, add notes or comments, and add bookmarks to long pdfs.  I would like to be able to print the document without or with my highlights, notes, bookmarks.  I work for the Chief of Police and need the documents to be authentic.

              I noticed, JGreg7, that you said "If the user chose Searchable Image, that is what you get. The image is is front and this is great for law offices and archival purposes where they need to search the PDF but it is not selectable or editable.".  So if I choose OCR for editing, will I not be able to search the document?  And if I choose OCR Searchable Image, I can search but I can't highlight, add comments or notes or add bookmarks? 

              Our town has just upgraded from Acrobat Pro 2017 to Acrobat Pro DC and am struggling to highlight text. 

              Thanks 

               

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