I am trying to emphasize certain sections of a scanned PDF document in Preview. I assume that it's impossible to highlight, so I tried using the toolbar to choose a rectangular shape, line thickness and color in order to draw a box around the paragraph. I can see the rectangular box on my screen (not in color), but each time I hit "enter" it disappears. Suggestions PLEASE!
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1
If you just mean to highlight a certain area in the image - it works on mine; however, I use the Save command, not just hit the return key (that does nothing).
Here is a photo scanned in > exported to pdf > get the markup tool bar > pick the options > hit Save in file menu.
And this is the end result:
If you just mean to highlight a certain area in the image - it works on mine; however, I use the Save command, not just hit the return key (that does nothing).
Here is a photo scanned in > exported to pdf > get the markup tool bar > pick the options > hit Save in file menu.
And this is the end result:
You need to choose a blank (no color) inside of the shape you will draw.
Here is the screenshot of my markup toolbar:
The left circle is the color of the outline of the shape you choose
The right circle shows the choices for the inside of that shape from "no color" - a line through it - to whatever color you choose.
I'm assuming you mean you used a scanner to get a document onto your computer, and saved the scan in PDF format.
If that's correct, all you did was enclose a raster image (TIFF, JPEG, etc.) in a PDF wrapper. It's still an image and you can't select text as if it were a Word, TextEdit or other such document.
There's no other file type you can select with a scanner that will produce anything editable. At least, not in the way you want. A scan will always be a raster image.
The only way you can edit a scan of text is after scanning the document, you run it through OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). Such software attempts to figure out what letter the pixels are forming and turns it in to text you can export. From there, you can edit the exported text.
You need to activate the Markup Toolbar (not sure what a taskbar is).
You need to select a rectangle shape, not a "Rectangular Selection."
In my case, the cursor's position is not important.
You just said "textbox" - is that what you chose? If so, then it will not save until you have inserted text - actually typed something - and then saved it.
Nope, that didn’t work. I tried saving it with the cursor inside the text box and from outside. When I saved it with the cursor inside, it didn’t disappear, but it also didn’t save. When I tried it with the cursor outside, the text box just disappeared. The really odd thing is that the border is still black even though I chose red.
I am choosing "Rectangular Selection", then the thinnest line for "Shape Style", and the color "Red". That allows me create what I'm referring to as a Textbox (the same way that I do a screenshot by using the Command-4 keys. When I initially click onto the PDF, it shows no taskbar at all - I have to get it from the View option in Preview. However, the taskbar looks nothing like the taskbars I've seen on the You Tube videos, i.e., there is no icon that looks like a pen scribbling, etc.
When I follow those precise directions, I just get a big yellow box that actually covers up the text that I want to emphasize😣
IT WORKED!!! Thank you so much - it has been driving me crazy all day!
Glad we got that worked out!
Altering Scanned PDF
