Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Highlight tool changes from freehand to text select.

[bwachtel]

I need to backcheck some pdf drawings and to do so, i highlight my original markup if its been picked up. While doing this, ive noticed there are two forms of the highlight tool. Both come from the same tool button the "highlight tool". One form is a circular cursor that does freehand highlighting. The other is a vertical bar like a capitol letter "I" that only highlights text. I cant determine why, but the version of the tool that i get to use varies between pdf's. Is there a way to set the freehand tool as default?

Thank you for the help!

[Grace24121303h1oc]

I am being as kind as I possibly can -- whoever designed this software may be a fantastic coder and computer nerd, but has no common sense or idea what most users would need.  

Most people I know OFTEN use the redact and the highlighter.  This highlighter tool is such a disgrace that it has been easier for me to just print out the document, highlight it manually and then rescan...no kidding.

They see that many people are having a great deal of problem with this tool -- where it should be extremely simple, you want the free-hand or the select for a nice pro look --  it appears they have made it deliberately complicated instead.  

[Cameron28000390d1m0]

I seriously almost punched a hole in the wall today because this highlighter tool is so bad

[ASPriester]

I finally gave up and decided to do a workaround. 

Click the "draw a rectangle" icon. 

Right click to change the Properties.

Choose your highlight color.

Click the dropdown for borders and choose "no line" (unless you want a border around your highlighted area)

Click the dropdown (looks like a checkered flag) and change the opacity to 40%. 

You can also select "Keep tool selected" if you want to highlight several areas within the document. 

[LEANNE5E55]

thank you for posting your solution! 

[defaulto7xef4zxzqtw]

This is not at all the correct answer. He/She orginally asked how to make it freehand, INSTEAD of only on text. No one cares about making it highlight only text. This post reply has helped no one. Answer this: How do I make the highlighter freehand?

[defaultauzo6s4vt7g8]

I second the above comment. I have the same issue and want to freehand the highlight tool. One document I can freeland the hightight tool and another document I can't.

[brianh62127660]

This is still an issue in 2024. I work mainly with civil and architectural drawings, the ability to switch between highlight modes would be handy. Highlight text does not help when you need to highlight a pipe running diagonally across the page. The ability to switch between types of highlighting would be useful.

[Josh229975617rkq]

Adobe Acrobat DC is horrible at editing every aspect of .pdf when comparing to MS Word.  If you have office 365, the easiest way I've found is to export the .pdf to MS word do your edits and  highlights and edits, then to export the .pdf from MS word, not adobe. There are additional features that are carried over from when using the MS exprot to .pdf feature adobe acrobat feature.  Editing .pdf files in MS Word is much easier than adobe. The only thing adobe acrobat is good for is adding, removing, organizing pages, and exporting .pdf files to MS word. Also, another good feature of MS word is sharing documents with others is much easier.  You don't have to use the Adobe Acrobat server.

[Lindy32452622c7uo]

I agree this is frustrating, I found a way around this by exporting my original document to pdf rather than printing to pdf (what i originally did)  I then Saved exported downloaded file to computer,  then opened the saved document.  For whatever reason the highlighting worked perfectly then.  This may or may not help everyone but thought it might work for some.

[aorzolek]

I've found a work around. When in the Comment, using "Pencil", you can change the line thickness and color opacity so that Pencil functions as a freform highlighter (rather than text highlighter).

[Jose35477707wxe7]

Surely Adobe could make 2 separate tools. One for highlighting texts and one for freehand.

[Cameron28000390d1m0]

What's crazy to me is that over a year ago I had both options, I would select the highlighter tool and right next to the color it showed an option for freehand/text and I could easily swap between both options with a click.. They got rid of that feature.. I reached out to support thinking it was an error but it was not.

[Roger2690027449b5]

The only workaround I have found is to make the marker tool a different color, around 40% transparent, and increase the size. It's very annoying if you also want to make freehand notes in red pen because you are then switching back and forth.