Most of the tools are free – this makes them very appealing to most PDF users. If you have access to an internet connection, highlighting a PDF document should be easy with online tools.
If you are using Adobe Reader, you can check whether the document is secured by clicking on File > Properties and then select the Security tab. If your PDF file is not scanned but you still can’t select text in PDF, chances are, the file has security that prevents editing. The OCR feature will help you convert the image of the text in your scanned PDF into a highlightable/selectable text. If you are wondering how to enable highlighting in PDF originating from a scanned paper, you may need to work with a PDF tool that has the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature. A scan is an image of the original piece of paper. If the PDF file originates from a scanned piece of paper, then the reason you can’t select text in PDF is that there is no “text” to highlight or select.
If you can’t select text in PDF, the reason could be one of the following: It is not uncommon for PDF users to deal with the “PDF won’t let me highlight” issue. 4. Highlight a specific word in PDF on Mac.3. How to highlight PDF on Windows 10 or earlier.