highlighting in scanned document - worked, then didn't

Report · Jul 12, 2016

Hi, folks,

(First time on any forum… 🙂

I have a large scanned document, a Latin dictionary, 400Mb.

I have tried OCR'ing it, but the results are not satisfactory.

So of course text highlighting is not available. To this point I had substituted yellow-framed links pointing to the link itself – it works, but not elegant.

Earlier today, I discovered – to my delight – that the highlight tool gave me true highlighting – as with a highlighter pen – the original brand was HiLiter, I think, maybe?

So I started using that – deleted a few of my yellow-framed links, changed them to HiLiter highlighting.

In that process, more than once as I was dragging the highlighting cursor – a small circle with an arrow pointing into it – each time the highlighting just stopped at some point, and Acrobat had become unusable, unclose-able, etc – it had effectively hung or died.

Then, on one of those occasions, I rebooted Windows (W7). When I came back in and started to do the highlighting again, I discovered – to my dismay, this time – that now the highlighting tool referred to highlighting text, and if I tried to use it, Acrobat would want to OCR the page.

WHAT HAPPENED?

WHAT CAN I DO TO GET THE HiLiter HIGHLIGHTING BACK?

I haven't done anything – not intentionally, at least – to either get that effect, or to lose it – seems that both have just happened.

Help! Please? Thanks!

Report · Jul 13, 2016

Can you select text?

Report · Jul 13, 2016

Ouch...from my original post: "scanned document" – OCR doesn't work well – "So of course text highlighting is not available."

Thanks for the reply, but no, I cannot select text – if I could, then I could highlight it.

Report · Jul 13, 2016

When there is no text then you can't highlight.

Report · Jul 13, 2016

Not true, Bernd... 😞

Once again, from my original post:

Earlier today, I discovered – to my delight – that the highlight tool gave me true highlighting – as with a highlighter pen ...

I highlighted that phrase here, to show you what the highlighting looks like. Oh, never mind, I just discovered Insert Image! So, here's a fragment of my document with the highlighting :

Please note that what you see is not text, and therefore, of course, not the usual text highlighting (notice the irregular edges) – but it is highlighting nevertheless – call it "area highlighting", if you will.

Notice also what I said above about the cursor style when the highlighting was working. Perhaps that will remind someone of the correct answer here?

Thanks.

Report · Jul 13, 2016

This happens when there is no text.

Report · Jul 13, 2016

Bernd, I regret having to say this, but clearly you have not read what I wrote, nor have you looked at the picture.

The picture shows, equally clearly, that I did indeed do as I claim to have done – highlighted an area, not text, with a "HiLiter" pen, so to speak. Read the entirety of the original post, please – not just the title.

Next answer, from another poster, please?

Report · Jul 13, 2016

Yes, you can highlight an area.

Report · Jul 13, 2016

In my original post I mentioned the difference between the cursors when the highlight tool, as shown here in yellow

is going to work on text or on an area. Here is a sketch of those cursors.

The left cursor, for text, is the only one I can get now.

The CORRECT ANSWER to this post will tell me how to get the CURSOR ON THE RIGHT WITH THE HIGHLIGHT TOOL! (That cursor, on the right, can only be my memory of what it looked like, but it's pretty close.)

Report · Jul 14, 2016

What version of Adobe Acrobat do you use?

Report · Jul 14, 2016

I get this circle:

Report · Jul 17, 2016

Thanks for following up on this, Bernd.

In a huge, old, yellowed Greek dictionary, this is the cursor I see in a non-text area at the top of the page (should be all black, not blue as shown – PrtScr doesn't capture the cursor, so I had to create the image from the toolbar – but otherwise as shown):

And here is a sample of the highlighting in that non-text area (the yellow, of course, as in post #4 above):

When the highlighting cursor crosses over from a non-text area to text, it changes from the pointer-plus-circle to the usual vertical-bar-in-a-box cursor for text, and then back to the pointer-plus-circle if the cursor moves back to non-text.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have now seen that these highlights – both text and non-text – seem to be considered "comments". In the comment list, the text highlights are called Highlighted Text, whereas the non-text highlights are called just Highlight.

Finally, however, although the Latin dictionary is entirely non-text, yet at this time the pointer-plus-circle cursor does not appear.

But it did, that one occasion, back just before I first posted the question! ...again, as shown in post #4 above.

???

Report · Aug 02, 2016

ken thu huongc86137616 wrote:
...
When the highlighting cursor crosses over from a non-text area to text, it changes from the pointer-plus-circle to the usual vertical-bar-in-a-box cursor for text, and then back to the pointer-plus-circle if the cursor moves back to non-text.

This is correct.

Report · Aug 01, 2016

More info...

I have just created several more .pdf files from files scanned to .bmp.

The highlighting tool works as expected – result looking like this – with the highlight-pen-plus-circle cursor!

So: How can I get that cursor (and highlighting) on the other file, the big dictionary file that is also the result of scanning?

I assume that there is a setting somewhere that I'm not aware of? I've looked diligently through Edit / Preferences, trying to find something different between the new .pdf files where highlighting works, and the old where it doesn't work – but with no luck.

Once again: It happened before, once, by accident. How can I now do it on purpose? It seems that this is the key to the CORRECT ANSWER.

Help! Please?