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default3yor8zila2b5
Participant
January 9, 2022
Answered

Acrobat Reader DC: Underline, highlight, and strikethrough are all greyed out

  • January 9, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 3984 views

Hi everyone! I'm using Acrobat Reader DC. It's updated to the latest release 2021.007.20099

 

After taking a couple of months' break from study, I opened up a .pdf and tried to highlight it, but I can't.

I can click and drag to select the text, but then in the popup that appears, the 'underline', 'highlight', and 'strikethrough' icons are all greyed out. The 'Copy text' and 'Edit text and images' icons are working fine, but the other buttons are greyed out.

 

I've tried on multiple PDFs, none of them protected - in properties/security they all say that there is no security method, and that everything is 'allowed' except for document assembly and page extraction. These are also PDFs that I have highlighted in the past. I can see highlights in them, but can't make any new ones.

 

I've restarted Acrobat Reader, but that doesn't fix it. 

 

Any idea why these functions would be greyed out?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer default3yor8zila2b5

It fixed itself. Two weeks later and I can now underline, highlight, and strikethrough. No idea what the problem was, or how it resolved itself.

 

Thanks anyway!

2 replies

JR Boulay
Community Expert
JR BoulayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 11, 2022

MOVED TO THE ACROBAT READER FORUM

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
Amal.
Community Manager
Amal.Community Manager
Community Manager
January 10, 2022

Hi there

 

Hope you are doing well and sorry to hear that. As described the option for Underline, highlight, and strikethrough are all greyed out for all the PDFs

 

What happens when you try to highlight the PDF file? Do you get any error message? If yes please share the screenshot of the same for a better understanding. A small video recording of the same would be very helpful.

 

As you have the recent version installed. Please try to repair the installation from the help menu (Windows Only) Help > repair Installation and reboot the computer once.

 

Please try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described here https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792082 and see if that works.

 

You may also try to create a new test user profile with full admin rights in Windows or enable the root account in MAC and try using the application there and check.

 

Regards

Amal

 

 

 

 

D
default3yor8zila2b5AuthorCorrect answer
Participant
January 20, 2022

It fixed itself. Two weeks later and I can now underline, highlight, and strikethrough. No idea what the problem was, or how it resolved itself.

 

Thanks anyway!

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