Can't highlight text in a PDF in Preview--it just selects entire page

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Schmoodli Author

Level 1

6 points

Can't highlight text in a PDF in Preview--it just selects entire page

This is a seemingly simple task that never seems to work for me.

I've perused the WWW and followed all recommendations--see attached screen shots.

What am I doing wrong?

This one shows that the PDF file is un-encrypted and I have full permissions.

This one shows that it is indeed saved as a PDF file (and I'm not trying to edit an image).

And this one show that I've selected everything needed to be able to highlight text.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Feb 18, 2022 7:35 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

111,713 points

Feb 18, 2022 7:42 AM in response to Schmoodli

If that is a scanned PDF document, any text that you see is contained internally as a JPG image and it cannot receive annotations, as would be the case if the PDF were generated from a document opened in an application. You would need a PDF Editor (not Preview) to apply Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert that image text to actual text.

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Answer 2

Schmoodli Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 18, 2022 10:09 AM in response to VikingOSX

Okay thanks. Ya I just realized I did scan a physical letter into my phone with an app. I chose the option to scan it in "as PDF" but at the end of the day, it's still just a picture saved in PDF format.

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Can't highlight text in a PDF in Preview--it just selects entire page

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