How to Highlight Text in a PDF Document

Download Article

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: July 28, 2022 Tested

Download Article

Using Adobe Reader DC

|

Using Preview on Mac

|

Q&A

Need to make a certain line of text stand out in your PDF document? This wikiHow article will show you how to highlight text in a PDF on your PC or Mac using Adobe Reader DC and Preview.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Using Adobe Reader DC

Download Article

1
Open a PDF document in Adobe Reader. Do so by opening the red Adobe Reader app with the stylized, white A icon. Then click on File in the menu bar at the top of the screen, click on Open..., select the PDF document you want to type on and click on Open.
- If you don't already have Adobe Reader, it's available for free from get.adobe.com/reader and can be used with Windows, Mac, and Android operating systems.
It's the marker icon on the right side of the toolbar at the top of the window.

Advertisement
The text is now highlighted.
Doing so saves your highlighting.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Using Preview on Mac

Download Article

1
Open a PDF document in the Preview app. Do so by double-clicking on the blue Preview icon that looks like overlapping snapshots, then clicking on File in the menu bar and Open... in the drop-down menu. Select a file in the dialog box and click on Open.
- Preview is Apple's native image viewer app that's automatically included with most versions of Mac OS.
2
Click on the highlighter tool. It's the marker icon in the right-center of the toolbar at the top of the window.
- To change the color of the highlighting tool, click on the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the marker icon and click on the color you prefer for highlighting.
The text is now highlighted.
Doing so saves your highlighting.

Community Q&A

Search

Add New Question

Question

How can I highlight text in a PDF on a mobile device?

wikiHow Staff Editor
Staff Answer
This answer was written by one of our trained team of researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

wikiHow Staff Editor

Staff Answer

One easy way to do it is to download a PDF highlighter or note-taker app. Try an app like PDFelement, PDF Expert, or Highlighter.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 0 Helpful 3
Question

Is there a way to highlight text in a scanned PDF document?

wikiHow Staff Editor
Staff Answer
This answer was written by one of our trained team of researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

wikiHow Staff Editor

Staff Answer

You wouldn’t be able to use the highlighter tool in Acrobat Reader for this unless you first OCR the document (that is, run software that converts the images to text). You can do this with Acrobat Pro, or use a program like ExportPDF to turn the file into a text document.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 4 Helpful 4
Question

How do I erase the highlight on text?

Community Answer

The best way to do this is to highlight the highlighted text using your cursor. After that, you will see that there will be an 'h' icon which will already be selected. Simply click that to get rid of the highlight.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 8 Helpful 1