How to Highlight in PDF File

Careful reading or passing documents to someone else often requires selecting certain moments. If you feel the need to do this but don’t know how to highlight it in PDF documents, there is an online tool letting you highlight a PDF fragment. With PDFLiner, highlighting is as easy as underlining them with a pencil.

Highlight in PDF

highlighting tools on a table

How to Highlight in PDF Document

If you need to use a highlighter in PDF but have to edit (or provide access to it), you can easily use our online PDF highlighter. The algorithm is simple:

1. Log in with your credentials or via your Google/Facebook account. After you do it, your username will display in the top right corner.

Highlight in PDF step 1 screenshot

2. Upload the file where you need to highlight the text. You can also select one of your uploaded files or choose one from our public library of popular forms and documents.

3. After the document loads, pick the “Highlight” tool in the menu in the top left corner. Click it and select the “Highlight” option from the dropdown menu.

4. After your cursor turns to a small yellow square, choose the text you want to highlight with it. Repeat as many times as necessary to highlight words in PDF that are on different lines. After you release the left button, though, the tool needs to be activated again.

Highlighting PDFs steps 3 and 4

5. After finishing, click the “Done” button in the top right corner.

The convenience of using PDFLiner to highlight documents is in no necessity to search for the necessary tool in submenus: it’s available in one click from the main editor. You don’t need extra actions to save the document, and it’s easy to share it afterward.

Edit PDF

How to Remove Highlights from PDF

When you need to remove your mark on PDF files, you can do it with PDFLiner as well. Just do the following:

1. Open the document as described above.

2. Choose the “Highlight” tool again (not Blackout or Whiteout! You need the same Highlight option to remove it).

3. Move the cursor to the highlighted section and click on it. It will automatically select the entire highlight and offer you to either confirm or remove it.

4. On the pop-up menu, click the recycle bin icon.

5. Click “Done” to save your changes.

As for the Whiteout and Blackout tools (available under the same Highlight icon), they are used to whiteout or blackout the text if you need to apply some censorship.

What Else Can I Do with PDFLiner

Not only can you highlight a PDF document with PDFLiner, but also edit it in many ways. You can add a signature to it, fill it if necessary, add comments, edit contents if possible. There is also a huge library of various forms, contracts, and other fillable documents you can use as-is or make some changes. You can save, send, or download them after editing in one click. Finally, there is a tool to create PDF documents from scratch, add text, pictures, and other necessary elements. In most cases, the features of PDFLiner are enough to make the changes you need.

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FAQ

Perhaps, you have several questions on the topic; check the ones below to get more useful details about highlighting in PDF files.

Will my mark on PDF always be yellow?

Yes, it’s the standard highlight color. Adding other colors would have made the editor more sophisticated and not so fast-loading. Our mission is to provide an easy online tool.

After I add highlights to PDF documents, can I edit them further?

Yes, you can, just like you do in your standalone application. After you click “Done”, all the changes are saved.

Will the highlights remain when I open the file in Adobe Acrobat or any other offline viewer?

Yes, they will; no matter which app you use to see it, and no matter if it’s a desktop or a mobile version. It’s one of the advantages that make PDF the default document format.

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Highlight PDF

Liza Zdrazhevska
Content Marketer at PDFLiner