How to Highlight in a PDF

Quick List: How to Highlight in PDF

Here’s how to highlight text in a PDF easily.

1. Select the highlighter. Open Adobe Acrobat and select the highlighter tool on the horizontal toolbox.

2. Highlight. Once selected you can click and drag to highlight your PDF.

3. Save. Simply save the file as normal to keep your changes.

In Detail: How to Highlight in a PDF.

There are several ways to highlight text in a PDF. Here’s how.

Highlight your PDF document online.

Whether your team members are working from home, the office or on the move, there may be times when they have limited access to systems, tools and resources. Adobe offers online tools that are perfectly suited for this scenario.

If you have an Internet connection, you can highlight text on your PDF from anywhere in the world — and on any device — with an online editor. Simply go to Adobe Acrobat online services from any web browser and follow these three easy steps:

1. Select the highlighter tool from the horizontal toolbox located at the top of the PDF editor.
2. Select your highlight colour. You can use different colours to highlight different areas depending on your needs.
3. Click and drag the cursor to select the text area to highlight, releasing when you’ve finished.

Acrobat online gives you the flexibility to work wherever you are while maintaining the standards of excellence and ease of use you’re looking for.

Highlight your document with PDF software.

If you work with PDFs often, you might find it easier to work with your documents off-line using the full functionality of dedicated PDF software, such as Adobe Acrobat. The PDF file format is effective at preventing unwanted changes to the file, but it can also be used for editing and mark-up.

While the tools for editing a PDF aren’t as widely known as with some other formats, they are just as simple once you know where to look. Here's how easy it is to highlight important text directly in a PDF:

1. Open your PDF in Acrobat.
2. Click and drag the cursor to select the area of text you want to highlight.
3. A small toolbox will appear above your text. Select the highlighter tool icon and it will automatically highlight your selected text.
4. To modify, click the highlighted area and a new toolbox will appear. This toolbox allows you to add a note to the highlighted text, change the highlight colour or remove the highlight.

Learning how to highlight your PDF digitally will let you interact with your documents in a way that utilises your files more effectively, improves collaboration and communication and speeds up workflows.

FAQs

Here are some frequently asked questions about opening and editing PDF files on iPhone and Android.

How to print highlighted text in a PDF?

Once the document is highlighted and marked as you want it to be, you may need to print it to send, present or continue to edit it tangibly. Printing a PDF defaults to a setting which will only print the document — not including your mark-up. If you want to include your highlights in the printed file, follow these simple steps:

1. Select Print from the File menu or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+P for PC and Command+P for Mac)
2. In the Print pop-up window, select Document and Mark-up from the Comments & Forms drop-down menu.
3. Adjust any other desired print settings.
4. Click Print.
5. Begin the conversion. Finalise your PDF by selecting a save location and renaming it.

In addition to highlighting your text, you can also edit, underline and strikethrough text, as well as explore other capabilities such as converting PDFs. You can also add comments and notes, draw suggestions, compress the file to make it easier to share and much more.

See everything you can do with Acrobat to leave pens and highlighters behind and stay productive anywhere.

How to Unhighlight in PDF?

Whether you’ve accidentally highlighted the wrong section or you no longer need a highlighted area in your PDF, removing a highlight in a PDF is easy. Just follow these simple steps.

1. Find the highlighted section you want to unhighlight.
2. Right-click and select Delete from the drop-down. This will remove the coloured highlight without deleting the text.

How to Change Highlight Colour in Adobe?

It’s also possible to change the colour of a highlighted section in a PDF. Colour coding can be helpful in a wide variety of scenarios. But what if you highlight a section in the wrong colour or need to change it later? With Acrobat, you can change the colour of the highlighted section in a few short clicks:

1. Right-click on the highlighted section.
2. Select Properties from the drop-down.
3. Click the square Colour icon which will enable you to select from 40 different colour options or select Other colour, which will bring up the option to create Customised Colours.
4. Add Customised Colours to your selection to make it quick and easy to highlight using those colours going forward.
5. You can also customise the thickness and opacity of your highlight in Properties.

Whether you’re working as part of a team, referencing a range of sources, bookmarking information to review later or categorising sections of text, highlighting your PDF in different colours can help.

How to Add Comments to a Highlight in Adobe.

Highlighting a PDF can be helpful for many reasons. If you’re highlighting sections to refer back to at a later date or assign to another team member, it can be helpful to add comments for clarity. Here’s how to add comments to a highlight in an Acrobat PDF.

1. Highlight the text following the steps listed above.
2. Right-click on the highlight and select Open comment panel from the drop-down.
3. The comment panel will appear on the right-hand side of the document, where you can type your comment.
4. Once you’ve typed your message, click Post.
5. Once you’ve added a comment you can add a checkmark, set the status, edit and delete it by clicking the three dots in the top right of each comment box.
6. If you’re adding lots of comments to highlights in a PDF, you can search, filter and reorder them and even export them to a data file. Simply click the icons or the three dots at the top of the comment panel.

Related Content.

Highlighting isn’t the only thing you can do with Adobe. From saving pages as PDFs to embedding fonts, discover the power of Adobe today.

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