How do I highlight a pdf document?

Thanks so much for the link. I will check it out after a night of sleep. One option the Apple chat rep. mentioned was for me to do what you mentioned, i.e., print it; edit it; scan the edited document and send it electronically. To my knowledge, I don't have a scanner, but I suspect there is a way for me to do it. I can probably do it with my ipad, but I am a novice with the ipad.

BTW, I am a member of the 51%. I am now retired; but from what I observed during my career, all else being equal, the 49% trumps the 51% about 98% of the time. As for the definition of minority, I do know that it's about more than numbers. The Y chromosome is still running the show.

I have a very good friend who is 85, so you're not "post" her. She is sharp as a tack and is a real inspiration to me. I was just telling her last night that after we spend years stumbling into life's potholes, it somehow is supposedly tranformed into wisdom; but the truth of the matter is that the only thing that changes is our perspective about the traps we continue to fall into. I continue to livitup! 🙂

Thanks for the heads up about the ipubsoft link not doing the trick. BTW, thanks also for letting me know the app you purchased from the Apple store didn't work.

I did not mention it my previous communication about this issue, but like you, I also went through the Pages excercise with my document, before I tried this forum. I suggest you pay close attention to any suggestion/hints we receive from Baltwo. IMO, Apple is lucky to have people like him who enjoy helping people like us; i.e. people with the intellect who recognize and acknowledge our lack of expertise with the technology, but are anxious to move up on the tech learning curve.

While chatting with Apple reps, it became clear to me that the most likely avenue for finding a solution is Adobe, because pdfs are Adobe documents. Apple reps have indepth knowledge of Apple software; Adobe reps have indepth knowledge of Adobe software. Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to Adobe, so I don't have free access to their paid advisors. I'm hoping I will encounter a helper in one of their community forums who is as helpful as Baltwo is in the Apple forum.

I am dealing with a pdf document that was scanned into the computer and subsequently converted to a pdf document. As I understand it, it is an image from a journal, i.e., the equivalent of a photo. When I marked the document to "show invisibles", I saw that the text is inclosed in a frame. Thus, it is not a true pdf document. I even went to the American University library, hoping that I could get direct access to the journal in which the article originally appeared. I found the article, but it was in the same pdf format that I already have. So that was a deadend.

Unfortunately, I have next-to-no knowledge of the technology behind .jpg images. But if Adobe allowed the conversion to pdf format in PDF version 1.3 Acrobat 4X, surely they will know if there is a way for users to alter text within images.

The fact that you have encountered the same problem is encouraging to me, because that tells me the issue is more likely to have been a topic of discussion in the Adobe forum and a solution already described. See you in Adobe.😉

FYI...it took me all day, but I finally understand how to do what I want to do. I must purchase a subscription to either one of 2 adobe products: 1) Adobe Acrobat XI Pro or 2) Adobe Creative Cloud. Acrobat is all I need for this task, but not sure I want to spend $30 to increase the likelihood that a 49%er, who has made up his mind, will read it. I supposed I could do the 30-day free trial, but that is not the intended purpose of the free trial, so I hesitate taking advantage of it for my purpose. I can't find the $30 monthly price option, to avoid the annual commitment of the $19.99 option, but the Adobe chat rep gave it to me, so it must be there somewhere.

The Creative Cloud is the latest product, and will allow numerous tasks to be performed from all devices, but it costs $74/month and would be a collosal waste of $ for me. The last thing I need in my life is more time on the computer.

Here are the links to both: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/buying-guide.edu.html; and http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html

Regardless, I have moved up one notch on the learning curve.

The answer to your question is in the first paragraph of my post on Feb 14, 2014 12:52 PM.

You might also want to read the posts from leilanathan. He had the same problem I had. Apple chat wasn't able to help him either.

pdf documents are Adobe Reader documents. As you know, Adobe Reader has become the standard for sharing documents across the web. AR does so much that I have often wondered why it is free. After running into this problem and researching it thoroughly, I have learned so much, only one of which is why AR is free. Adobe uses "Reader" as a way to reach a large number of potential customers. Then, whenever people reach the point that they want to do something the programs written by Apple or Microsoft will not let them do, they go to the Adobe website and purchase an Adobe product that will allow them to do what they want to do.

"Preview" is a program written by Apple. It will help us do many things with pdf documents, but not all. That is why sometimes, when you're trying to do something that Preview won't do, the panel pops up on the right hand side, asking if you want to create a product. I knew that meant I would have to pay, but I didn't understand how it all fit together until I came to this forum looking for an answer. It's a long thread, but if you read it all, you will realize it is very instructive about the issue.

I have learned that Preview also has other functions; but I didn't know that when I started, so I haven't used it for anything else yet.

I've been using the computer for a long time and this is the first time I've run into the pdf problem, so it wouldn't be worthwhile for me either. I assume Apple signed some sort of agreement with Adobe to get Adobe to do what they had to do to make the AR compatible with the Mac OS. I suspect Apple would be violating some sort of Adobe intellectual property rights if they developed the conversion app you suggested to them.

The Apple chat person told me that most of the apps in the app store are developed by 3rd parties. So, computer nerds might be able to do it. But as you pointed out, the app you purchased didn't pass muster, so it must be more difficult than we would think. (BTW, my 85-yr old friend said her first computer was a Mac. But she switched to a PC, because at that time, she couldn't even exchange emails with her kids who had MS operating systems.)

This is off the subject, but I also learned that the reason I can't scan is because I have an old Brother printer, albeit laser. The newer Brother printers have scanning capability. If you don't know about laser v ink jet printers, laser printers don't require the ink cartridges, so I'm not constantly forking out $ for ink cartridges and I'm not constantly worrying about running out of ink!

Laser printers require toner periodically, like the ones we used to use in the office, but home printers don't get the high volume use that office printers do, so the toner lasts years! I've only replaced my toner cartridge once. I've had the printer so long that I don't even remember when I bought it.

The only drawback of a laser printer is that it only prints black and white. I so seldom want to print in color that I just copy the file to a 4GB flash drive and take it to Staples for color printing. Laser printers might cost more too, but my brother is the one who told me which printer to buy. At the time, I didn't know the difference. I just bought what he told me to buy.

Correction...it's the only drawback of mine. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out, because I really do need to know more about printers. It's obviously time for me to update mine. I probably won't replace though, until I need to replace the toner or the technology renders it unusable. I am not going to invest in a color laser. I haven't read your link yet, but even then, I imagine color lasers would cost more than a B&W and as stated in my previous email, I have found an easy work-around that meets my rare desire for a color copy.

How does this one look? Same model, different prices.

http://www.brother-usa.com/MFC/ModelDetail/4/MFC7360N/Overview#.UwLGxnm9zUk

http://www.staples.com/All-in-One-Printers/Brother/cat_CL161518?fids=4214931150

Do you have a different favorite?

Sorry for delayed reply. I just noticed the alert about a new entry on this discussion. Using your info, I played around with my document again, to no avail. Perhaps the difference between our situations is that I downloaded the file I was trying to highlight directly from the net. It was already a pdf file. There was a msg at beginning of document notifying me that it was the html version, that Google automatically saves documents as ".html" when "crawling the web"...Whatever that means!

I also went directly to the American University website, found it there, but it too had the .pdf extension.

At some point, today, I managed to save it with "txt" extension, hoping that it would somehow let me do more with it. But that was a deadend.

Let me ask you this....You said you don't know what program your correspondent used to send you the "draft" in an email. Was your correspondent the originator of the document he sent you?

BTW, you sound as tenacious as I am about learning. Long after others give up, we're still trying to put all the pieces together. Info technology simply added a new dimension to the puzzle. As frustrated as I get at times, each time I come away knowing a little bit more. I submit that the world is lucky to have our kind.😉