• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Highlight tool not working - all other tools work

Community Beginner ,
Jan 05, 2015 Jan 05, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

When using any "text" .pdf that is downloaded and fillable my highlight tool does not work. When I highlight text with the cursor then select the highlight tool the comments box indicates that the "highlight tool" has been used, but no color is added to the text. This occurs no matter what color highlighter I use, nor the opacity setting. All other tools (e.g. - underline tool, add text) are working perfectly. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? I am using a Lenovo Windows 8.1 machine and running AcrobatReader 11.0. Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions. 

TOPICS
Comment markup and annotate , General troubleshooting

Views

46.4K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jan 05, 2015 Jan 05, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

First suggestion is to update your Reader version to 11.0.10, then try again.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 05, 2015 Jan 05, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thank you for the suggestion. I did the update, restarted the machine, and tried "highlight tool" in a couple .pdf files. no change. "highlight tool" still not working. I can select the text, click on the highlight tool, a comment appears in the comments box indicating that a "highlight" edit has been made, but no color appears on the text of the .pdf.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jan 05, 2015 Jan 05, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

And the highlighting color is set to something different than your actual document background?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 05, 2015 Jan 05, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

correct. I have tried yellow and green. and adjusted the opacity setting on both to no avail.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Something to try: Go to Edit - Preferences - Page Display and tick off the "Use 2D graphics acceleration" box (if it's ticked).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Gilad D - I tried that but couldn't find the "2D graphics acceleration" option on my page display settings.

I did however mess with the highlighter default settings and discovered that some colors will make the "highlight tool" function properly. It seems like the color spectrims that are very light (e.g. - light yellow or light green) will not appear, but if I change the highlight tool color default to orange it does work. Does anyone have any thoughts on this new development?

Anthony - what operating system, etc. are you using? I am beginning to wonder if it is a graphics card issue.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello

My system is Windows 8.1, running on a 64-bit system Intel i5-3330CPU @ 3.00 GHz, 4GB RAM Graphics=NVIDIA GeForce GT620

Regards

Anthony

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Sorry, that option is available in Acrobat, not in Reader.

What is selected under "Default Transparency Blending Color Space" in the same location, though?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

On my systems is shown: WORKING CMYK

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Try switching to "Working RGB".

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I tried that, but it doesn't work either.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm out of ideas...

Report it to Adobe as a bug: Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks

I have sent in a bug report.

Thanks for trying to help. Much appreciated.

Regards

Anthony

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks everyone for the assistance. I haven't had any luck fixing the issue either. hopefully either someone else will chime in or adobe will offer a fix.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 06, 2015 Jan 06, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello

I am having the same problem and I have tried every suggestion (repairing, re-booting, editing settings)

Regards

Anthony

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Adobe Employee ,
Feb 12, 2015 Feb 12, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi,

It appears that this was a bug that was introduced in the latest update. Others have been able to resolve this issue by using the Acrobat Cleaner tool to uninstall and then reinstall Acrobat. You might try this if you have a few spare moments.

And can you please share the problem PDF  which was working correctly in the earlier version.


Thank you

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Mar 07, 2015 Mar 07, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I was having the same problem and was able to highlight by using Ctrl M on the keyboard.  That worked for me.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Mar 19, 2015 Mar 19, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

For what it is worth, the highlighter tool no longer works properly for me on Acrobat XI on one computer, but continues to work normally on the other computer. Based on a suggestion here, I tried changing the color of the highlight from the standard yellow and found that most, but not all, colors will work (lighter blues and greens also fail). I changed it to a pinkish color and made that the default until Adobe finally acknowledges and fixes the problem. Interestingly (if you care), if I highlight in standard yellow and save the file, the highlights appear if I open it on the same computer in Adobe Reader or on a different computer in Acrobat XI. In other words, it does really highlight the text, but will not display the yellow (and some other colors) and will not print them. If text is highlighted in yellow in a Word file and then converted to pdf, my Acrobat XI will not display the yellow highlight in the converted file, indicating to me it is a display and printing problem in Acrobat XI.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 04, 2016 Jun 04, 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I agree, I have the same problem. This was an expensive program and I am really upset. I used the highlighter a lot and then it just stopped working. I know how to use it and I know its an Adobe problem. Will anyone address this? There is no help for this? Makes me not want to use any of their products.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Aug 21, 2016 Aug 21, 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

My guess is that you are viewing a scanned document- so text doesn't show up, it's just one large image. The workaround is to use the line function and change the opacity of the color you choose.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

After none of the suggestions in this post worked I stumbled across the solution.

Specs:

Date: 01/02/2017

Using Windows 10

Adobe Acrobat XI v-11.0.18

Issue:

-Not sure what changed since I hadn't changed my preferences but all of a sudden the highlight text tool stopped working. 

-Editing an actual PDF (not a scanned document)

-All other annotation/editing tools worked

-Attempting to highlight text would have an outlined box around it when cursor was over it but would not appear highlighted

-Opacity and background colors were checked and were not the issue.

Here is what I did to fix it:

Edit < Preferences < Accessibility and then Unchecked box for ---> Replace Document Colors.

Click OK.

Now my highlighting works.  Hope this helps

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 31, 2017 Jan 31, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Actually, I think the answer lies with an earlier respondent scross321. He suggested that if a pdf is a scanned document it is a single image and cannot be amended.

I had a similar problem this morning with a pdf I copied from another source that I wanted to highlight. The highlight function would not allow this. So, I downloaded the Acrobat Cleaner tool suggested by sangrover and reinstalled DC Reader. Still no joy with the highlighter tool. I then opened a pdf that I had made from a printed document and the highlighter tool worked perfectly.

Therefore, I deduce that scanned documents downloaded as pdfs need to be printed then converted back as pdfs in order for the Adobe Tools to be able to work. Tedious, I know but at least I have a solution; and I don't feel as though the magic arts of programming have defeated me again!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Feb 02, 2017 Feb 02, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@ arbey48 - That was not my issue. 

In my OP you'll notice that I mention I was working with a PDF document not a scanned document and my posted solution fixes that issue. 

The issue you are referring to with tools not working on a scanned document can be resolved using the >Text Recognition > Recognize Text in This File (*check the box to ignore future errors if a pop-up appears saying Acrobat could not perform recognition(OCR)...) tool in the downloadable toolset from Adobe titled AGI All.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Oct 06, 2017 Oct 06, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

BLESS YOU GOOD SIR OR MADAM.

To all - Highlighted Text was not appearing as highlighted in Acrobat Pro (but was highlighted if I opened the same document in Reader).

br34892473's solution solved this issue.

Reiterated solution here:

Here is what I did to fix it:

Edit < Preferences < Accessibility and then Unchecked box for ---> Replace Document Colors.

Click OK.

Thanks again br34892473!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines