High Sierra Preview Highlighter

In Preview (High Sierra), you end highlighting by clicking on the black (in-use) Highlight button on the Preview Toolbar.

Were the Preview contextual menu contents removed in Sierra too? Removing these in High Sierra is simply inane.

No fix.

In High Sierra, with Preview, you pick your highlight color, and then highlight the first text selection. Each subsequent word, or block of text that you select, or double-click with the mouse, will receive that same highlight color. This makes the Highlight keyboard shortcut pointless, since you would have to select text to use it, and by then, the highlight is already applied.

Removing highlight from the right/control click context menu is a loss of functionality that hurts, i.e. I now have to perform 5 or 6 clicks with large mouse movements between documents where a short move and right click used to be enough.

The context is entering data in a Numbers spreadsheet while looking at a statement in Preview. Preview used to let me right click and highlight an entry without selecting the document. A cell within the Numbers document was selected and stayed selected so I could update the cell. I am not exaggerating when I say this task now takes at least 2 time longer than it did with previous versions.

Well, this bug might have different causes and therefore might require different solutions/procedures.

First it appears that if I activate the highlight function on the menu bar (i.e. "Hervorheben" in the German Version)

then the shortcuts don't work anymore.

So in my hands it works as follows:

- the menu button "Highlight/Hervorheben" should not be activated (i.e. it should not be black/grey)

- then I go to the menu button "Highlight/Hervorheben" and select a color (eg. "Yellow/Gelb") without having labeled any text within the PDF-document (that means that you would not highlight an already marked text within the PDF-document, but that you would be highlighting any text thereafter using your cursor)

- then I inactivate the menu button "Highlight/Hervorheben" by directly clicking on it (i.e. it should no longer be black/grey)

- then the shortcuts for highlighting or underlining of the text should work again - at least in my hands

- I hope that this will work for you - if not probably fool around with the sequence of events as I did and got lucky in the end

- I actually assumed for a long time that once I highlighted and/or underlined the text in a PDF-document and the short cuts stopped working that this could not be reversed

- but I was amazed that sometimes I could use the shortcuts again but couldn't figure out why

- so today by fooling around with the sequence of events I finally got lucky

- reading a lot of manuscripts, publications and other PDF-documents as I do in my job it made really furious that a simple program such as preview all of a sudden didn't work anymore as it did before

Using Macs since 1993 I can only say that Macintosh is no longer what it once used to be - a user friendly revelation in computer technology. The newer systems softwares like macOS Sierra are basically an improvement for the worse. My previous Macbook pro (the one with a DVD drive) with the systems software before El Capitan was much more reliable, faster and much more professional to use. My new Macbook pro is not a real advancement - it simply wastes my time by its shortcomings. At a certain point I even entertained the notion to switch to a PC again - alas, I have to many thousands of aliases that would be too much work to reestablish those a PC. So I have to stick with Mac - which is no fun anymore.

The context menu with the highlight buttons seems to be only displayed if you right/control click on a highlighted area of the doc. I really want that to show up for any bit of selected text, not just that which has already been highlighted.

I know that they have changed. I posted that El Capitan Preview secondary menu as an example of what should have been retained. I updated my Sierra machine, so no longer have one available to check there.

Same person that removed the Link annotation from Preview in Lion, has struck again. 😠

I may file a bug report — just to remind them of flagrant feature removal.

My Highlight Button actually disappears with each new document. I have to customize the toolbar to add it to a single document but it only lasts for that one. Really annoying since I have come to use this all day long.

This is my post to the feedback I just left with Apple.

"I have to customize the menubar in Preview to add the Highlight button in every new document to have access to it. Opening that same document will show the Highlight button, but every New document will have the button and function gone until I drag the missing button off of the menubar and then re-add it. I use this function every day and all day."

As a temporary solution; With kntrl(or control)+cmd + U combination underline, kntrl+cmd + H combination can be done highlihgt. However, all these shortcuts are still not as practical as in the previous version.

ahhhhhhhhaahahrrrggrga!! This is so stupid! HOw can Mac overlook this issue!? I have used Preview consistently for the last 5 years and NEED to highlight text, but now it only STRIKES THROUGH, even though the tool menu states that command/control H should be highlight. Is there something I'm missing?

Please help!

This is NOT a fix, but...

I found the last version of the Preview app (v9) and drug into the apps folder and have restored the lost functions. This is all new to the newer version and several steps back in my opinion.

Hope this helps.

Ciao

Since using macOs Sierra I got the same problem which is really annoying since I no longer work on printouts but I highlight and underline text directly in PDF-documents using respective shortcuts. The strange thing is that it usually works

Today by chance I found a solution which might work for you as well.

print any literature and

Since using macOs Sierra I got the same problem which is really annoying since I no longer work on printouts but I highlight and underline text directly in PDF-documents using the respective shortcuts. The strange thing is that it usually works fine in the beginning and then the shortcuts don't work anymore.

Today by chance I found a solution which might work for you as well. The solution in my hands works as follows:

- inactivate the highlight function in the menu bar (it should no longer be black/grey)

- then activate the highlight function by selecting a color (eg. yellow) without having labeled any text within the PDF-document

- then inactivate the highlight function by directly clicking on it (it should no longer be black/grey)

- then the shortcuts for highlighting or underlining of the text should work again - at least in my hands

Here is a tip I was given about a week ago that at least alleviates most of the problem. After opening your Preview article and before doing anything else, go to the top menu bar select the ^, then the colour you wish to do your highlights in. (The Paintbrush then darkens.) I still find the colours quite dark for a highlighting system though. Hope this is of help to you.

Bernard

FWIW, the contextual menus have changed…