Highlight tool makes opaque highlights (covers up text)

You can change the opacity of your highlights by right clicking on your highlight and selecting Properties. In the Properties dialog adjust the slider for the highlight opacity.

When I open a PDF that someone else has highlighted in my Windows Acrobat 9 Pro Extended all the hightlights are opaque yellow. How can I change all the highlights to a transparent color without manually changing the properities on each highlight?

Try opening the Comments Panel and selecting all the existing comments. Then, right click to select Properties. This will allow you to change the opacity setting for all the comments at once.

There is a problem with the software, I try to change the opacity but that dims the text as well. The whole point of a Highlighter is to bring attention to specific text, not block out the important information. That is unless you work for the CIA ;-).

Is there a setting to ensure the Highlighter is set behind the text plane? This way the Text is on top of the Highlighter and not trying to block it out.

Thank you, lkassuba. That is a good work around.

Kashmir is right, though. It seems bizarre to implement a highlight tool with opaque colors.

I am experiencing the same problem. When I select text and then select Highlight Text (Comment), the selected text is completely covered by the yellow hightlight. The hightlighted text cannot be read. This is the first time that this feature has not worked for me. I can open previously saved documents and read the text "behind" the hightlight. However, as soon as I scroll down, the yellow becomes opaque and covers all hightled text so that nothing can be read. I have made no changes in Preferences or anywhere else. User of Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Have you tried changing the opacity of one of your highlights and then setting this as the default?

I think I need to explain the problem in more detail. I have been using Acrobat Pro 9 for several months. I used the highlight text tool with no problem. Opacity was set at 100%, which is the default on my installation. I had no trouble reading the black text “behind” the yellow highlight.

Within the last two weeks, I noticed a problem. Highlighting did not work as it once did. With opacity set at 100%, which it always had been, the text is now completely hidden. To use the yellow highlight tool, opacity must now be set at 25%. The text can then be seen, but it is very faint and hard to read. This is not the way that this program initially worked. It is also not the way the program should work. I can’t believe that faint and hard-to-read text is the intended result.

Highlighting works as it once did if I uninstall and then reinstall the program. However, after the reinstall, highlighting works as it once did for one document only. If I open another document or close the program and return to a document, highlighting does not work as it once did. Documents created weeks ago cannot be read because the yellow highlighting completely obscures the text. When the documents were created on AP9 weeks ago, they could be read.

If I use the yellow highlight tool, I can barely read the highlighted text. I cannot recommend this program to anyone because of the way that highlighting now works.

Hi
Thats strange.

it could just be a preference setting changed as its working fine this end.
One think to check that the replace colors is not checked in the preferences – accessibility. That can do some wierd color conversions.
Does it only happen on yellw text or is it evry color?

Hi MKBuckley again

You could either post a link of the file or email an example of what is happening so i can see what is happening my end if you like?

Can Adobe tell us why they just don't fix this problem. Highlighting is broken and it needs to be fixed. The work-around with the Pencil gets you part-way there, but it is a hack. Adobe, do you have a response for us?

Someone suggested that I send examples of the highlighting problem, but highlighting does not show up in this message box after a cut and paste, and I can't attach a file to this message.

I am now using PDF-XChange. This program highlights text like AA Pro used to do, and does everything that I used AA Pro for.

Mike

Just discovered the same problem here: except that it seems to arise and disappear for some as yet unascertained reason (see below)!

I found this thread after just now after using the highlighter on a word-processed PDF export, when the highlighter completely obliterated the text. I tried two different word-processors' test-piece pdf exports with same result. A week or so ago the highlighter appeared to work just fine on an OCR-scanned-document PDF (i.e. image with hidden OCR text layer), but on going back to check, using the tool completely obliterated the text (and/or the text image).

I tried altering the opacity as suggested here, but that is an unacceptably crude remedy (no slight to lkassuba intended): as has been pointed out, reducing the opacity to around 25% results in an insipid yellow and the highlighted text looks partially erased.

This would be an unacceptable alteration to the way the program works, but this effect did not appear to occur immediately after installing the update (to v9.2.0), and I am unaware of any more recent auto-update.

I tried enabling these PDFs for commenting in the reader (Comments>Enable for commenting and Analysis in Adobe Reader...), but this doesn't appear to be any answer.However (!), I discovered that the highlighter would work properly if I closed the Acrobat program down and then opened the PDF(s) in a fresh boot of the program. If I closed the PDF [b]without closing Acrobat Pro[/b], on re-opening the document, the highlighter obscures the text...

A commenting-enabled PDF, correctly highlighted in (a fresh-boot of) Acrobat Pro, saved, and then re-opened in Reader, shows correct highlighting, with the tool enabled and working correctly in Reader. However (!!), if the document is closed [b]without closing the Reader program[/b], and then re-opened in Reader, the existing highlighting obscures the text once more, and using the tool also obscures the text.

So I'm guessing there is some obscure glitch/switch which is seriously altering the behaviour of the program, which in the absence of some brainy/obsessive Acrobat 9 Pro user chasing their tail long enough to figure out the solution (and broadcasting the answer globally), [u]Adobe itself should address with some urgency[/u].

To share a copy of a PDF (and several other file formats), go to acrobat.com.
Obtain an Adobe ID (free).
Open an account at acrobat.com (free)
Upload the PDF.
Use the "share" feature.
(take a moment to look over Help to be sure you understand the "how-to" and which type of "share" to use)
A link is placed to the clipboard.
Paste link to a text file (notepad perhaps).
Here at AUC, post a reply - paste link into body of reply - submit.
Link will be present in your post.

[url=https://acrobat.com/#l]acrobat.com[/url]

Be well...

Hello daka360 (or can I just call you daka :-) ?)
Thanks for the route.
I've uploaded a test text-based PDF file, which includes (p2) a screen capture of the highlighter glitch as displayed during use. I trust I've set up sharing correctly...

https://acrobat.com/#d=XrIeZLnA7GUj40Rw-u9GiA

However... I tried an installation of AAPro9Ext on a laptop, and this does not echo the problem: PDF documents which fail to display highlighting correctly on my PC 'perform' as they should on the laptop.

As mentioned, on first opening AAPro9Ext and the above test file on my PC, the highlighter works/displays as it should. If I close the PDF, but leave AAPro9Ext running, on re-opening the PDF, previously correct display of highlighting (and any additional highlighting performed) now blocks out the text (as per screen-cap p2 in shared example above).

So I'm thinking this is nothing to do with the PDF document itself, but [b]perhaps[/b] stems from a conflict between AAPro9Ext and another program installed on the same machine (i.e. is it possible AAPro9Ext may not be 'impervious' to some shared component being altered?).

I'm also thinking that PDFs which show this authoring glitch may still display correctly on an unaffected machine. But since this prob can apparently affect Acrobat Reader, I'm thinking that this 'vulnerability' needs to be urgently addressed.

This sounds more like a display problem since it works correctly on your laptop. Try unchecking "2D graphics acceleration" under Edit > Preferences Page Display to see if it corrects the problem.

Well lkassuba, aren't you the bee's knees, the icing on the cake, and so on... that seems to have fixed it.
I was thinking software conflict, not hardware: it'd never have occurred to me to try that!

I wonder if this has some bearing on the issue:
"If acceleration hardware is detected, then optimization is enabled for all files except the first one opened when Acrobat launches."
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405218.php

Thank you for your prompt response there. Well done.

I'm glad it fixed things for you. Thanks for posting the link to the technical note.

Kassuba, thank you so much. I tried many ways did not figure it out for a month.

Whats happeing to my highlight tool. I can no longer highlight all it does is place a box around it. Opacity is set to 100%

Can Adobe tell us why they just don't fix this problem. Highlighting is broken and it needs to be fixed.

Thank you lkassuba!! i have been dealing with this issue for months!