Not able to highlight with Apple Pencil on iPad Pro with Scanned Document

[marks58080857]

I have taken a chapter from my textbook and scanned it into my computer in PDF format from a flatbed photo scanner.  The document is in PDF format, not JPEG.  When I open the document in Acrobat Reader Pro on my iPad Pro I am not able to highlight with my Apple Pencil.  Trying to highlight with my finger does not work either.  I can tap on the pencil icon and draw lines.  I can tap on the comment icon and leave comments, but highlighting does not work at all.  Has anyone had a similar experience and have any ideas as to how this can be corrected?  Thank you. 

[AnandSri · Accepted solution]

Hello Marks,

We're sorry for the trouble you had while highlighting the PDF, sometimes the scanned PDF document does not contain a real text and this is the reason you are not able to highlight the text.

Try selecting text instead of highlighting text.  If you cannot select text at all (no matter how hard you try), your PDF document is likely a scanned PDF.  You can only add Text Markup annotations (Highlight, Underline, Strikeout) to real text, not to the image of text.  You need to run OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to turn images of text into real text.

You can also refer and try the suggestions from the following Adobe article which discusses the similar scenario highlighter

Highlighting text using Adobe Reader on IPad ??

Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[moving from Acrobat Reader to Acrobat Reader for iPhone and iPad ]

[marks58080857]

Thank you. I have been able to convert the images into real text and now I

am able to highlight, underline and make notes on the documents.

Thank you for your help.

[Naveen36051407a3pz]

Found a trick that solves this. Scratch(up and down) the apple pencil on the first letter(you want to highlight) to start highlighting. A simple bug usually takes 100 years for Adobe to solve. So best to use this trick.

[S. S]

Hi @Naveen36051407a3pz,

Thanks for writing in!

Have you tried using the feature "Recognize Text" on scanned documents? This should make the text scan file readable and editable.

Hope this helps.

-Souvik