Tahoe 26.5 Preview issues: I have a MacBook Pro 2021 running an M1 chip. The last several updates of Tahoe have left Preview crippled. I can't select a highlight color and have it highlight more than 1 piece of text. I looked under previous posts and tried those remedies, e.g. shuttiing down and restarting, with no luck. I see the moderator closed the thread without any real resolution, which I realize may mean there isn't a current solution.
MacBook Pro 14″
Hi Kelly,
That's a known bug in Preview since Tahoe — the highlight tool lost the ability to keep multiple separate selections active, so it only holds the last one you made. No real fix yet on Apple's side. As a workaround, you can highlight one section, then use Cmd+F to search and manually re-select each other section one at a time — tedious, but it works. Worth submitting via Feedback Assistant since it's a regression, not user error.
Hi Kelly,
That's a known bug in Preview since Tahoe — the highlight tool lost the ability to keep multiple separate selections active, so it only holds the last one you made. No real fix yet on Apple's side. As a workaround, you can highlight one section, then use Cmd+F to search and manually re-select each other section one at a time — tedious, but it works. Worth submitting via Feedback Assistant since it's a regression, not user error.
As @VikingOSX states, select a highlight color then select the highlight text tool, select a highlight color then select text to highlight. You can select discontinuous text, change the highlight color, etc.
More info: Highlight, underline, and strike out text in a PDF using Preview on Mac - Apple Support
Side note – 'top rated' posts are selected by AI, and the Apple Discussions AI likes to select AI-generated answers even when they are typical AI slop thanks to the garbage in garbage out nature of LLMs.
I can open a two paragraph PDF in Preview, select the highlight color, and then select the first text item, skip forward three words and and select another text item. The highlight color is applied to each selected text item.
If I wanted that second word in a different highlight color, I would select a new highlight color before selecting that word.
Is this not what you are attempting?
Apple does not list every bug that they fix, so keeping macOS Tahoe updated to the most recent version is advisable.
Tested: Preview 11.0, macOS Tahoe 26.5.2.
Kelly Tuesday wrote:
Tahoe 26.5 Preview issues:
The current stable release of Tahoe including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 26.5.2 - I would start there and compare your results.
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Tahoe 26.5 Preview issues
