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Highlight tool is not working in Acrobat Pro DC

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 18, 2018
26 replies
133293 views

I recently installed the recent Adobe Pro DC updates. A simple yellow highlighting feature used over the years is now seemingly impossible. When clicking the highlighter, the text areas show myriad border lines and when I try to put the cursor in front of text I want to highlight, huge blocks of asymmetrical shapes are highlight in yellow instead of just the word or sentence I am wanting to highlight.

I am also finding other simple edit functions are not working properly.

Please advise.

Douglas Stewart

[Personal info removed by Mod: Email]

Correct answer AnandSri

Hello StewartWeb

We apologize for the inconvenience caused, as per the description above, Highlight tool is not working in Acrobat Pro DC, Is that correct?

Please check for any pending updates of Acrobat Pro DC(if any) from Help>Check for updates and reboot the machine after the installation of updates.

You can also repair the installation files of Acrobat Pro DC from Help>Repair installation(only for Windows), Reboot the machine after the repair.

If the issue persists, please reset the preferences of Acrobat, to reset the preferences refer to How to reset Acrobat Preference settings to default.

If the issue is specific to one PDF, please check the PDF properties once from File>Properties>Security and see commenting is allowed or not. If it's a secured PDF, you will not be able to add comments.

You may also try to disable the Enhanced security option once only for testing purpose but enable it back after checking the functionality. To disable the enhanced security option, refer to Enhanced security setting for PDFs, Adobe Acrobat

If the issue persists, please use Acrobat cleaner tool to remove the Acrobat Download Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner Tool - Adobe Labs Reboot the machine and install the Acrobat Pro DC from Download Pro or Standard versions of Acrobat DC, 2017, XI, or X

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

[Edited response]

Show previous replies

J

JZybach

Participant

I understand this is old, but my edit tool don't work. I am completely uptodate and just to check I created a test document and I can't highlight in that either.

L

LInda2225057713ir

Participant

I have this same issue now......... 😞

M

Michelle24314305h4vd

Participant

Make sure you are actually in an Adobe product, that your document did not open in Chrome.

T

Tim231182182cxv

Participant

Hi,

It's 2022 and this problem is still happening. Yesterday, i could highlight pdf documents with yellow by clicking the highlight tool, selecting what I want with it, done. Highlighted. Today, doesnt work. I tried finding solutions online but only found people have this same issue... A pdf document is a pdf document, why cant Adboe fix this once and for all? Now I've spent 16 minutes trying to find what is not available - a solution. Giving up on Adobe. Sad.

M

Mama Shan

Participating Frequently

I am experiencing the same with blobs of highlite and assymetrical shapes....what happened? This was working a few moths ago...I miss the highliter tool!

L

Leonard5CD0

Participant

It can't be that hard to fix the glitch which prevents highlighting and is driving your users crazy. Just fix the damn thing and put out an update rather than having the users do your work for you.

E

Edwards iPad

Participant

Hi-liter still doesn't work. I get the magnifier, but no hi-liting occurs as I drag my finger along the text. What's wrong?

Why did you change the procedure? It is extremely annoying to constantly have to adapt to a new way of doing things, especially when they worked just fine.

Maybe I should seek a different PDF reader. Maybe they won't change things up, all the time. I can't over emphasize how annoying this is. I wonder if your techies just make changes to keep busy, and chuckle over our incompetence, to keep pace.

S

sameproblemwithhighlighteruser

Participating Frequently

I agree with your frustration. I finally called their technical help and got it to work. Highlighting should also not generate a separate comment. Highlighting is common enough. They make it so hard to do. Frustrating. On the other hand, there is nothing that appears to work as well as Adobe Acrobat Pro.

S

sameproblemwithhighlighteruser

Participating Frequently

I just bought the monthly subscription. Attorney. Working fine. Then the same problem! Worked with two adobe techs for over one hour. No solution. You would think they would be aware of this problem. Adobe says it can't help me untilo higher level techs perhaps are available on Monday. I am not a tech. This should have been solved before. I will keep researching community solutions. It would be ironic that the solution will be found here, but not from adobe techs. More than annoyed.

TABulger

Participant

I had no problems with highlighter tool until I purchased a new computer and I'm now on Windows 10. A solution I saw above worked! Print - do not select Adobe PDF; DO select Save as PDF. This worked.

I can't test the download file b/c of the system I'm in won't download.

Good luck.

S

sameproblemwithhighlighteruser

Participating Frequently

I am glad my suggestion was helpful to you. A higher level tech called me yesterday. I may have caused part of the problem. Apparently in taking documents from the web Never Print to PDF because that flattens the pdf and highlight won't work on a flattened document. Instead download as Adobe PDF (best) instead of print to pdf which I had been doing to fix the problem. Allegedly save is a better command than print. Also just to make sure, download again adobe pro, and be sure when Acrobat DC is installed the default setting for opacity is set at 100% not 0%.--that can bring the highlighted color back. I also like to highlight without it showing up as a comment. It used to be the old highlight feature in adobe did not have highlight show up as a comment. Usually highlight need not be something to clutter commenting column. According to tech this could not be fixed currently.

B

BethAM

Participant

There are NOT two different highlighter tools. The difference is that if the document has been OCR'd, the highlighter works in regular block text. If the document has not been OCR'd the exact same tool is a free-form draw, that may or may not snap to a straight(er) line once you've drawn it. If you don't want to look like you were highlighting after a few glasses of wine, just OCR your document, then highlight. Once the document is OCR'd you'll be able to highight individual words or blocks of text in their entirety. I have a document where some of the text OCR'd properly and some didn't, and in the same document the OCR'd portions highlight in blocks or straight lines, and the parts that didn't OCR properly (becuase someone marked over them) use the same highlighter tool in free-form (drunken) mode.

G

ghislainen52006259

Participant

HI! I had the same problem. when I clicked on the colour 'bucket' to change the colour the opacity slide at the bottom of the colour palette was set at 0%!!! When I moved the slide towards the 100% end the colour on the highlighted text appears!! SUGGESTION: When Acrobat DC is installed the default setting for opacity is set at 100% not 0%.

K

kerip32032456

Participant

Hello, I have had this frustrating issue also. I searched for a solution today and found this forum. Since the offered solutions did not seem to work for others, I did more testing on my own. I have found that it really depends on the type of file you are using. For instance, I often obtain files from another company's portal. I have three options to save these files as PDFs on my computer:

1) Print - Selecting "Adobe PDF" as my printer choice. This is the one that causes issues for me. The highlighter tool will mark large, irregular sections of the page rather than the lines of text I want. It appears Adobe thinks this is an image and not a document, the "Find" function also will not find words in this case (even after using the "recognize text" feature).

2) Print - Selecting "Save as PDF" as my printer choice. This method, for whatever reason, makes the text recognizable and I am able to highlight without issues. Find function also works.

3) Download the File which auto-saves as a pdf and opens as a Chrome link. I close the web page, then open the file from Adobe and am able to highlight without issues as the text is recognized. Find function also works.

From what I've found, printing to "Adobe PDF" seems to cause the problems I'm having. Method #2 works the best in my case.

If you are scanning a document in, you'll want to make sure your scanner settings are set to text/document rather than image/photo. If you are opening a PDF from an email or similar source, and not downloading or saving it there may be other settings to look at.

Hopefully this continues to work for me and will work for others as I know it's rather irritating!

Good luck!

A

AW-UNAK685

Participating Frequently

This HIGHLIGHTER TOOL ISSUE is BEYOND FRUSTRATING! I've been using Acrobat XI for years &then suddenly the Highlighter tool began making large oval blobs on my PDF's. I looked for solutions for months & finally decided to try the trial version of Acrobat PRO DC. Same issue. Blobs on some PDF's and not on others. SO... today...

I Phoned Adobe Acrobat PRo Support. The first tech did not have a clue! He got into my computer and spent half an hour wasting my time and my satellite download time looking at the program as if it was the first time he'd ever seen it!!! After I gently concluded the call, I went for a walk to blow off some steam & then called back. The second Tech also had no clue!!! Or if he did, he was unable to explain it or resolve it after another half hour in my computer and looking at several different PDF's I had in my files.

Neither of the Techs I spoke with:

A: UNDERSTOOD that there was an ONGOING ISSUE with the Highlighter tool....even tho there are hundreds of people who have asked online about it for YEARS!

B: Could figure it out. When the second tech got into my computer he IMMEDIATELY zoomed down into the Registry so as to" 'fix' the registry issue" but could not clearly tell me what it was !?! I am reluctant to ever have anyone just twist things in the registry so I asked him to stop. Then he poked around the program but could neither explain nor 'fix' the issue.

~~~

I just now read the April 19, 2019 reply by Kerrip___... and now I have a glimmering of an understanding about how/why SOME PDF's arrive in a 'different' PDF format... Hmmmmm.

SO... since i always save as an Adobe PDF I tried Kerrip's "SAVE AS PDF" (a 'generic form of PDF i guess.).. and by god! The Highlighter tool worked perfectly the first time.

HMMMMMMM... So.... Now... one question is: Do I have to 'RE-save' every PDF in my computer if I want to highlight it? I've tried the OCR feature & that sometimes works to 'fix' the issue. but basically it doesn't.

VERY SAD TO SEE THAT ADOBE IS SO SCREWED UP that it cannot even fix an issue in it's own 'SAVE AS ADOBE PDF' feature!!!

NOW my problem is: Do I sign up for a monthly payment to support Techs that have no clue & programmers who can't design correctly in the first place OR FIX the issues?

I've been thru this with ADOBE Bridge and Photoshop too. HOWEVER, now two years into a subscription & countless numbers of calls and some very 'pointed' remarks in surveys about the issues, Adobe BR seems to have been FINALLY 'fixed'. I am 76 years old. Do I really want to PAY Adobe so I can waste two more years of my life converting Adobe's PDF's? I DO want to continue to do the research I am doing & reading the papers I need to read and then... well... so.... Aargh! There has to be an easier way!

Otherwise, this is just a revolving suction tool... and it's my time and $ that is being extracted!

Hmmmmm. Any advise gratefully accepted...

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