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jamies3586311
Participant
March 28, 2019
Question

Select characters rather than whole words

  • March 28, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 3007 views

Both Acrobat and Reader seem to have inherited that annoying Microsoft feature of selecting entire words. I want to be able to select exactly the characters I have asked to select. Is there a way to turn off this "automatically select entire word" feature? I can't see anything in Preferences.

The one method that seems to work is using Shift and right-arrow to highlight text. I would like to also be able to use the standard mouse drag method and the click then shift-click method.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    December 20, 2019

    Click where you want to start the selection, hold down the Shift key and move drag the mouse to the right.

    When the selection automatically includes the beginning of the word you started from move the mouse to the left a bit and it will "jump" back. From that point you'll be able to select individual characters.

    Or you could use Shift plus the arrow keys, as mentioned before.

    A
    athiieh
    Participant
    December 20, 2019

    So has this question been resolved?

    The response offered by meenakshin83966505 in March 2019 does not really apply.

    Meenakshi Negi
    Meenakshi Negi
    Legend
    March 29, 2019

    Hi Jamies,

    It is still possible to select the characters in the PDF instead of a word.

    As you are not able to select the characters of the text, please check if it is a scanned PDF.

    Did you check if the issue occurs with a particular PDF or with all?

    Would it be possible to share the file with us? We would like to check it on our end.

    You may share the file using the steps provided here How to share a file using Adobe Document Cloud

    Please also share the application and OS version you are using.

    Let us know if you need any help.

    Regards,

    Meenakshi

      J
      jamies3586311Author
      Participant
      March 29, 2019

      Hi Meenakshi

      It's any PDF (not scanned ones, of course). Here is an example I have just created via InDesign. Try selecting from half-way through "here" to half way through "some". It will select all of "here" and all of "some", which isn't what I want.I have tried this in Acrobat Pro DC and Reader XI on Windows 7 plus Acrobat Pro DC on Mac.

      Here is an example PDF (I could not use Document Cloud because my company has blocked access!)

      jane-e
      Community Expert
      jane-eCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 30, 2019

      jamies3586311  wrote

      Try selecting from half-way through "here" to half way through "some".

      This is in Reader on my iPad:

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