macOS 26 preview does not allow highlighting on much of text

Preview does not allow you to highlight text in a chart in a pdf. I tried reprinting to a pdf made no difference. Apple needs to fix this now.

@Bruninho34, did you try a document where it was not working before? From the release notes, I could only find that support for the Studio Display XDR was included.

26.5 is out. Can anyone confirm whether it fixes the bug?

Same issue. Same files from before and after Tahoe. Tried running it through OCR and no change. Never an issue before and Adobe handles it okay still (both pre and post update). It'd be great to be able to use the new Preview on iPad as it's something I used to highlight documents daily on my Mac.

I'm having the same issue. I check credit card and bank statements and highlight confirmed transactions. Never a problem with Preview but now it will not highlight the currency amounts. Annoying. I also tried the trick of printing to a PDF, but the result was the same.

The 26.0.1 update was a security patch, not really a set of bug fixes. Expect those in 26.1, though most likely not all bugs will be addressed and it will depend on where this one falls in Apple’s list of priorities.

Thank you for your suggestion, @abis99. Alas, it only worked in a few text locations for me. Is there a print setting I'd need to check?

I also tried exporting the document with different settings, but to no avail. Even if its flattened to jpg, Preview will create boxes, in which I am unable to select text. ☹️

Problem is STILL not fixed, unbelievable! Apple is really going downhill. I have never seen such a buggy and unfinished software version being published by Apple. And a few months later it is STILL not fixed, very disappointing.

So sick of this new update. Sick of Apple constantly changing things around without giving us the option to retain or switch back to older versions. Bye bye, Apple. Had enough. After 15 years I'm going back to PC and Android.

I waited until 26.3 before upgrading to Tahoe to avoid buggy OS but unfortunately it's the same piece of...! I have been working exclusively with Mac's and all other Apple hardware and software. Since about 1995 I think. More than 30 years apparently! It WAS pristine! But ever since OS X with every upgrade I remarked some stuff got really downgraded. Eventually the hill went steeper and steeper. Downhill. Leading to enormous frustrations, files lost like those (very) old files suddenly turning into worthless .exe, lots of waisted time. And stress induced personal life expectancy going down also I suppose. When is this finally going to stop?

Just updated, it worked for the first line I highlighted, but then it reverted to the old issue. I closed and reopened the PDF and the issue persists so unfortunately Apple needs to try to fix it (again).

I first reported this highlighting text issue in charts on pdf’s I tried the print to pdf. Text select is there I still get the light blue outline around the bext i want to Highlight text. I really do not think apple cares about getting this fixed. 5 months later and not corrected. For a trillion dollar company to not get this one issue fixed should not be the case. But apple ignores certain issues they have. i need this to work for me.

The latest update seems to have broken my previously working Preview (as well as leaving me with a trackpad that sometimes doesn't take a click and urls that won't always load). I have been with Apple from the very beginning because of the quality, and because they did not force auto updates and lots of stuff we may not want on us. Looks like those days are over & we are entering the serious decline of the company? Anyway, I need annotatable pdfs and this is aggravating and time wasting. Past time for Apple to live up to its prior standards, read the forums, and fix this stuff- updates shouldn't be breaking basic functioning. (PS apple-- letting AI mess with my camera output without my control is NOT a plus)

Same issue…