I want to select part of the highlighted text in Adobe Acrobat. By using the select tool, when I want to select part of highlighted text, it selects all the highlighted text. For example as in the picture depicted,I want to select just first sentence from the highlighted text. Is it possible or a way to do this ?
4 Answers
If you turn on the "Edit Text & Images" in the "Tools" panel in Adobe Acrobat, you should be able to select text inside highlighted region and right-click to do cut/copy/paste. I just tried on my laptop using Acrobat 11.0. Hope this can solve your problem. Not sure if Adobe Reader can do the same.
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I have Acrobat Pro 9. I couldn't find it. Is it a new feature in Pro 11?– PrasannaAug 31, 2014 at 8:02
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1Yeah, it's working. But somehow dangerous! Maybe the text eliminated or changed without my notice!– HamedAug 31, 2014 at 10:12
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@hamed: I agree it is somehow dangerous, but cannot think of better solution.– phe0113Aug 31, 2014 at 20:17
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@Prasanna: I think Acrobat changed the interface since version X, this function should be called something like "TouchUp Text" before.– phe0113Aug 31, 2014 at 20:18
Some workaround for this very old bug.
Toggle Read Mode
On OS X: Ctrl-CMD-H
On windows: Ctrl-H
Use block selection
Shift + Alt + Drag-select
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In "Read Mode", I was able to simply select text within a highlight (block selection was not what I needed).– drevickoAug 23, 2017 at 14:06
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same. Using read mode allows selection. No block selection necessary.– filups21Jul 3, 2019 at 18:16
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This is far better than the accepted answer. You can combine block selection and Shift-clicking to get regular selections within highlights (without toggling Read Mode): 1. Block Select the first word (Shift+Alt+Drag/Doubleclick) of the desired selection, 2. Shift-click the end of the selection. A workaround with minimal compromise! Jul 29, 2020 at 22:52
It is possible but not perfect. Click with the mouse on the text before or after which is not selected to place there the cursor. Now use the keyboard keys ↑ , ↓ , → , ← to move the cursor to the part of the area you want to select and hold down Shift while you move ↑ , ↓ , → , ← on your keyboard to select the part of the highlighted text you are interested in.
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Isn't anyway to do this with mouse cursor? I need to select the text so many times.– HamedAug 25, 2014 at 23:27
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2@hamed This is the only way to do it in Adobe Reader. There is no hidden option because this was probably not intended by the developers at Adobe. You could report this as a bug.– DevidAug 26, 2014 at 13:06
Devid's solution will work for quotes at the beginning or end of highlighted text, but not more generally.
If you are tied to Adobe software for highlighting, but are willing to try another PDF reader for reading and selecting text, the desired result works in SumatraPDF: I am able to take a file that contained highlights in Adobe Reader and use SumatraPDF to select and copy any text within the highlighted text.
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1I know with the other pdf viewers I can do this, but adobe acrobat has a lot of feature that they don't have. There should be some option in adobe! no?– HamedAug 25, 2014 at 23:29