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1

Click and drag to highlight or move items isn't working in Adobe Pro.

New Here ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

Hi all,

Click and drag stopped working 2 days ago. I read a post elsewhere which suggested using shift and click but this isn't working either. I need this back again as I use this daily for my engineer's work reports. Can anyone suggest anything else?

Thanks

Claire

TOPICS
Edit and convert PDFs , General troubleshooting
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Community Expert ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

Click & Drag what, exactly? Also, what's the exact version number of the application (You can find it out by going to Help - About Adobe Acrobat), and what's your OS version?

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 08, 2025 Oct 08, 2025

When I select text in Adobe Reader for MacOS I used to be able to drag the text to another app. Now I get the cursor indicating I am dragging something, but when I drop it the contents are empty. 

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Adobe Employee ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

Hi Claire28100021a9ok,

 

Thank you for the information. 

 

Would you mind sharing more details on what happens when you try to highlight the text?

Share the Acrobat and OS versions you are using. 

Did you start experiencing this issue recently? 

It would be helpful if you could share the screen recording of what happens at your end.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 09, 2025 Oct 09, 2025

I deleted both Acrobat Reader and Acrobar Deader DC (not sure why I had both) and installed an older version. This seems to have resolved the issue, so it is certainly is an issue with a recent update. 

 

I am on MacOS 13, hiliting the text is not the issue, it's when I drag hilited text to another application like a text file, the contents were empty. Drag and drop from other applications had no issues. Yes it was recently, within the last 2 or 3 weeks. I cannot give you a screen recording because I already fixed the issue, but I think my description of the problem is sufficient for you to form yor own mental picture. 

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New Here ,
Apr 24, 2023 Apr 24, 2023

I'm having the same issue. In the old version, you could click at the beginning of text that you want to highlight and then drag your cursor over all the text that you want highlighted. When you released the mouse, all the text would be highlighted. In the new version, I can only get 1 word to highlight at a time and that's by double-clicking on it. 

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New Here ,
Oct 31, 2024 Oct 31, 2024

Same issue. Cannot select test by clicking and dragging, even after running OCR. This started after I began current subscription version of Acrobat. This was not an issue on the older (now-deprecated) desktop software. Is there a solution?

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Adobe Employee ,
Feb 19, 2025 Feb 19, 2025

HI @Michael DeVoe,

 

Hope you are doing well. Sorry for the trouble, and the delayed response.

 

I tried the workflow, and I was able to drag-select texts and highlight them. 

Would you mind updating the app to the latest version of the application (2024.005.20xxx) and let us know if the issue is fixed for you?

 

If not, please share a screen recording video of the workflow you follow for better understanding and further investigation.


-Souvik

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 09, 2025 Oct 09, 2025
LATEST

That isn't the same issue. This thread is about dragging text that has already been selected to another application in a drag and drop operation. 

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