Program will not highlight due to being locked in highlight text mode

[c_stevens2]

I am working on highlighting a few drawings which includes alterations that must be made. Some drawings PDFs I can highlight freehand no problem, others I cannot. It seems that the program is locked to highlighting text yet there is no text to highlight. Are there any ways I can force freehand highlighting?

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi C.Stevens,

As you are not able to add highlights to some of the PDFs, please check there are any restrictions applied to those PDFs.

Open the PDF in the application and go to File menu > Properties > Security.

Check the "Document restrictions summary".

If there is no restriction applied to the PDF, let us know what happens when you try to select the freehand tool.

Is it greyed out or you get an error?

Please provide more details.

We will be waiting for your response.

Regards,

Meenakshi

[c_stevens2]

The only restrictions are Document assembly and page extraction. When the highlight tool is selected it only allows the text highlighter but there is no recognized text in the drawing except for a company logo in the bottom corner. It is strange because some documents from the exact same source have no issues with the freehand, where as a few cannot do anything but text highlight. Is there a way to toggle away from text highlight to freehand?

[Document Geek]

I wrote an article some years back about how to highlight drawings using custom made stamps. It's a little wonky, but it works. Document Geek: Highlighting a PDF that contains no fonts

[c_stevens2]

Thanks for the reply, I would like to try to get the tool working correctly before I begin to explore work arounds. If I cant find a solution I will likely end up using your well written document. Thanks

[richards34353015]

I am having similar issues. Any document that has recognizable text, the freehand highlighter is never available. Holding ctrl does nothing, shift does nothing, etc, its always just the cursor. I have to have a pretty roughly scanned PDF to get the freehand highlight icon. I really would like to be able to do both, but if I could only have one, it would be the freehand, not the text highlight tool. Its very frustrating, seems like it should be one of the simpler things to do. What can I do to force free hand highlighting? I really almost never need text highlighting, just need to circle a few notes from our plan sheets, etc.

[richards34353015]

to expand, no security is selected, all types are set to allowed. It happens on all of our non scanned pdfs.

[Document Geek]

Please vote for this feature on the User Voice site: Freehand Highlighter – Share your feedback on Acrobat DC..

I posted a related request that easily solve the problem, but it was declined. Use the Drawing Tools to highlight objects – Share your feedback on Acrobat DC