Reviewing a contract, studying a paper or marking up a report: a highlighter is the quickest way to show what matters. You don’t need Acrobat for it.
How to highlight
- Open the PDF and pick Highlight in the tools.
- Drag across the text, from the first word to the last. The highlight follows the lines, like a real marker, and snaps to whole letters.
- Double-click a word to highlight just that word.
- Pick a colour: yellow, red, green, blue or black.
- Click Download to save the highlighted PDF.
To highlight something that isn’t text, like part of a picture or a table on a scan, drag a box around it.
Underline and strike out
Next to Highlight are Underline and Strike out, and they work the same way: drag across the text. Strike out is handy for suggesting a deletion in a contract without removing anything.
Notes, drawings and shapes
- Note puts text anywhere on the page: click where it goes and type.
- Draw is a pen for circling and arrows, with a mouse, a trackpad or a finger.
- Shape draws a box around a whole section.
Made a mistake? Undo takes it back, or select the mark and delete it.
They stay editable
Highlights are saved as real PDF annotations, not painted into the page. Someone who opens the file in Acrobat, Preview or Edge sees them as highlights, and can change their colour, comment on them or remove them. The text underneath stays searchable and can still be copied.
Works on scans too
On a scanned page there is no text to drag across at first. Pick Recognize text when the editor offers it, and the page is read in a few seconds. Then highlighting follows the lines as on any other PDF.
Private
The PDF is opened in your browser and never uploaded, so it’s fine for documents you wouldn’t send to a stranger’s server.