How do I disable automatic full-word text selection?

[Squid-]

Acrobat has that annoying, trying-to-be-helpful-but-instead-being-annoying, automatic full-word text selection that Microsoft implemented a few years ago. Microsoft, though, was nice enough to include the ability to disable it and select text by characer for users whose use of text sleection must be precise. I didn't see this option in the otherwise extensive Preferences--does it exist?

[Amal.]

Hi Squid,

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described, you want to select the text by characters and unable to do so as it selects the whole word instead.

- Would you mind sharing the steps you are doing to select the word?

Please make sure you are using the selection tool and while holding the left mouse button just drag the mouse over the word and it will select the word by characters. 

You may also look at the correct answer marked in a similar discussion: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader/how-to-turn-off-entire-word-selection-in-reader-dc/m-p... and see if that helps.

Regards

Amal

[Squid-]

Please make sure you are using the selection tool and while holding the left mouse button just drag the mouse over the word and it will select the word by characters. 

Yes, it will select the first word by character, but continuing the selection selects by word instead of continuing to select by character.

You may also look at the correct answer marked in a similar discussion: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader/how-to-turn-off-entire-word-selection-in-reader-dc/m-p... and see if that helps.

So the answer is no. Got it; thanks.

[Danielle384655173aui · Accepted solution]

The actual answer seems to be a bit more nuanced than this. If you select in the middle of a word with the left mouse button, Adobe will highlight character by character until you reach the end of the word, at which point it selects by whole words (including the beginning of the first word which you didn't want). If you keep the mouse depressed though and reverse back into the first word this expanded selection reverts and you can now continue to select further words without the whole first word being selected. The same move applies to each subsequent word you highlight. Adobe selects the whole word, but if you slide backwards you can select character by character. Kind of complicated and hard to pick up, but once you know how it work it's great. It's also important when you want to include punctuation in your deletion - which you often do when working with typeset proofs for publication.  

[Taylor23726180rquj]

So I have noticed that the default behavior for Acrobat changed from selecting character by character to auto selecting the next word. The only thing that i've found to help is if you click somewhere on the page you can hold the Shift button and use the arrow keys to go character by character. The other thing is that if you have access to the Edit Pdf tool if you use that tool highlighting text becomes character by character as opposed to word by word.  Worked for me as of 11/28/2023