Participant

Answered

Highlight tool is not working in Acrobat Pro DC

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 18, 2018
27 replies
133420 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]

T Arterbury

Participant

I am having the same issue and it is very frustrating. When I try to highlight a single line, it highlights a larges sections of the page in random shapes. Has anyone found a fix because nothing I have tried has worked so far!

T Arterbury

Participant

And this is happening with all of my PDFs whether I print to a PDF or scan a document in. I have checked for updates, I have tried using OCR….I have tried everything….

K

kathryn_2959

Participant

I am having this problem in Acrobat Pro. I'm using the cloud version. When I try to highlight, it selects a huge block on the page instead of specific words/text. I tried to Recognize text and use OCR, which tell me I already have text. I also checked for updates. How can I get this to work?

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi there,

Hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out.

Could you confirm if this issue is occurring with a specific PDF file or with all PDFs? Please try opening a different PDF file and check if the problem persists. This will help us determine whether the issue is file-specific or a broader application concern.

Additionally, ensure that your Acrobat application is updated to the latest version 25.01.20428. You can check for updates by navigating to Help > Check for Updates. After updating, please restart your computer and see if the issue persists.

Since you mentioned that you've already tried using Recognize Text (OCR) but are still facing the issue, it indicates that text is already present but not functioning as expected. To investigate further, please share the affected PDF file with us. This will allow us to test it on our end and provide more precise troubleshooting steps.

M

maria_8223

Participant

I have the same problem... I tried all the fixes recommended in these type of forums. Why wont you Adobe fix your product instead?

D

david277021606ga4

Participant

It is an amazing shame that Adobe--once and industry standard--is having problem what have not been fixed for more than three years.

T

Taxman407

Participant

I had the exact same problem and called in for customer service; 800.915-9428. The gist of it was to click to edit the pdf and run recognize text. The customer service agent also changed some security settings that might have interfered with the opening of the document. Mine was also color blocking way more than I wanted in a scanned document. The 'recognize text' fixed that even though the fax was of dubious quality. I am happy.

C

Columbus_IN

Participant

Before doing everthing Adobe suggested, you may be having the same issue I had. After you select the higlight tool on the floating toolbar, look five icons down immediately below the "push pin" icon. It will probably look like a "white circle" on a white bar, which is why it's not intuitive to see. That white circle is where you can select the color of your highlight tool. Change it to yellow or one of the other colors (anything but white), and your highlighter will "work" again. It was probably "working" all along, but if it was a white highlighter on white paper, it was invisible. Screenshot is below. (BTW - Really, Adobe? You apparently with the update set the default highlighter color to "white" when 99.9% of PDF page colors are white?! And then, you suggest multiple reinstall/repair steps, etc., instead of knowing how your "updated" app works or doesn't work. Ugh!)

T

Ted24617203axk2

Participant

I have never experienced this problem. I would reboot your system as a first try. I have had the cursor highlight as a circle on occasion. It was when I was highlighting text within a table or a graph. I found that highlighting there produced a shaky line, but Adobe corrected it to be straight, at the end of the highlight. When returning to the body of the document, the icon reverted to a normal icon and I could highlight the rest of the PDF file. I hope this helps.

M

Michael28969066d0j7

Participant

My highlight cursor is a circle. It is impossible to highlight text.

B

Beth24128142szns

Participant

Hi Michael. Try this. Your pdf is quite probably an image (even though the extension is .pdf), rather than text. (this will happen with scanned hard copies of documents and other abnormal pdf saves.)

Save your open pdf as a "SAVE AS" pdf and give it any temporary name.. Open the newly saved pdf and now you should be able to highlight the text without a problem. This is the only solution that I have found that works. Has nothing to do with updates... and there is no need to "convert" the text...

Hopefully thids will work for you as it does fo me. : )

E

Evan28801112egdu

Participant

Edit>Search More Tools (Or just type in the search bar)>type"Recognize Text">Press blue "Recognize Text" button

M

medartist

Participating Frequently

I have this problem when a pdf is merely a scanned hardcopy document without the pdf attributes. You can convert it but the auto text may misspell unlegible type of the scan is poor or a copy of a copy leading to poor resolution. If your image quality of the text is good try converting it and you'll get your highlighter back.

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded