Problem

The Highlight and Select Text tools select text you don’t want.

If your highlights are opaque and conceal your drawing or text, see this article.

Cause

Text in a PDF is stored in individual lines instead of blocks or paragraphs. As a result, dragging the cursor downward to select multiple lines of text might select text on the other side of the page.

Solution

Here are a couple of alternative methods you can use to accurately select and highlight text. You may find each method to be helpful in different circumstances. If you’re unable to select the text in your document, it may be an image of text rather than rendered text. Run OCR on your document to make the text selectable. 

The Highlight tool functions in two different ways. If the Highlight tool detects text, the cursor will change to an I-beam and snap to the text. If the cursor isn’t over text, the cursor is a pen and you can draw freehand – just like the Pen tool.

Click and drag

Holding down the Ctrl key while using the Select Text tool releases its snap-to-text function, allowing you to draw a rectangle around the text you want to select.

1. Go to Edit > PDF Content > Select Text (Shift+T) or click the Select Text button in the Navigation Bar.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key, then click and drag to draw a rectangle around the text. The selected text will have a temporary blue highlight.
3. Right-click on the selected text and click Highlight Selected Text.

The Copy selected text into Text Markups setting found on the Markups tab of the Tools Preferences, will make all highlighted text appear in the Comments column of the Markups List . This allows you to review marked-up sentences in a document one by one.

Draw a freehand highlight

You can manually activate the Highlight tool’s freehand mode by holding down the Ctrl key. This disables the snap-to-text function, allowing you to draw a freehand markup over text (similar to the Pen tool).

1. Click Tools > Markup > Highlight (H).
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and draw a line over the text you want to highlight. Draw a straight line by holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys.

How-To

Revu 2019

Markup

Revu 20

Other versions of this article

Revu 2017 and older

Problem

The Highlight and Select Text tools select text you don’t want to select.

Why is this Happening?

Text in a PDF is stored in individual lines instead of blocks or paragraphs. As a result, dragging the cursor downward to select multiple lines of text might select text on the other side of the page.

Solution

Here are a couple alternative methods you can use to accurately select and highlight text. Each is a little different and may be helpful in different circumstances.

The Highlight tool functions in two different ways. If the Highlight tool detects text, the cursor will change to an I-beam and snap to the text. If the cursor isn’t over text, the cursor is a pen and you can draw freehand — just like the Pen tool.

Using the Select Text tool and the Context Menu

Holding down the Ctrl key while using the Select Text tool releases its snap-to-text function, allowing you to draw a rectangle around the text you want to select.

1. Go to Edit > Select > Select Text (Shift+T) or click the Select Text button in the Navigation Bar.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key, then click and drag to draw a rectangle around the text. The selected text will have a temporary blue highlight.
3. Right-click on the selection text and click Highlight Selected Text.

The Copy selected text into Text Markups setting will make all highlighted text appear in the Comments column of the Markups List . This allows you to review marked-up sentences in a document one by one.

Using a Freehand Highlight

You can manually activate the Highlight tool’s pen mode by holding down the Ctrl key. This disables the snap-to-text function, allowing you to draw a freehand markup.

1. Click Markup > Pen > Highlight (H).
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and draw a line over the text you want to highlight. Draw a straight line by holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys.

The Copy selected text into Text Markups setting only works when text is selected with snap-to-text mode. As such, text highlighted freehand will not appear in the Comments column of the Markups List.

How-To

Revu 2017 & Below

Markup