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Highlighting Text in PDF


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When annotating a PDF that is embedded in a note, the highlight option only provides access to free-hand highlighting. This results in messy highlights and doesn't really fulfill the needs of the tool.

Is there any way to simply highlight text that has been selected?

 

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On 8/23/2016 at 0:38 PM, seanuoft said:

When annotating a PDF that is embedded in a note, the highlight option only provides access to free-hand highlighting. This results in messy highlights and doesn't really fulfill the needs of the tool.

Is there any way to simply highlight text that has been selected?

 

Hey @seanuoft,

You should be able to highlight in a straight line by holding the Shift key down on your keyboard while highlighting text. Hope that helps!

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  • 2 years later...

I've not been able to find how to highlight or underline text in pdf documents included or attached to Evernote notes.
 

I was expecting at least a few BASIC features for taking notes, highlighting or underlining text but all of the options are for me to draw on the bloody thing without any connection to the content itself.

I was hoping a paid subscription would give me at least some options but NO. I'm better off using Preview for underlining and Xmind for categorization and note taking.

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On 11/6/2018 at 5:37 PM, Thora said:

I've not been able to find how to highlight or underline text in pdf documents included or attached to Evernote notes.

AFAIK the only way to alter the content (ie edit the text) of a current PDF file is to use a PDF editor like Acrobat or Foxit - full versions of which usually cost about 3x Evernote's annual subscription.  Evernote allows you to annotate the content - ie add comments and marks. 

There's a reasonably full editor for Evernote Notes,  and depending on your device you should be able to output that as a PDF 'snapshot' of the content.  To change the content,  edit the note and re-save as PDF

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On 11/6/2018 at 9:37 AM, Thora said:

I'm better off using Preview for underlining

My vote is for Preview on a Mac and  Notability on an iPad.
Evernote does support some annotation features, but it's quite basic.

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I have to say as an evernote user it is utterly enraging how often I encouter threads like this.

1. FOUR YEARS AGO someone points out "hey, why doesn't evernote have AN UTTERLY STANDARD FEATURE like being able to highlight text" 

2. evernote users in essence say "yeah, the thing about the evernote car is it doesn't have rear view mirrors" but here's a work around. NOTE: I am NOT directing snark at the users -- they are actually trying to help.

3. Four years go by and evernote does, wait for it..... NOTHING. Nothing to improve this super basic functionality. 

Repeat 8000 times and that is the experience of being an evernote user. 

 

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Hi.  You had a small meltdown over highlighting text...

15 hours ago, Coswell Tarp said:

Four years go by and evernote does, wait for it..... NOTHING.

It's quite possible,  and has been for some time,  to annotate and highlight text in PDF files,  and to highlight in a text note.

The How-To Geek site describes PDFs as "typically used to distribute read-only documents that preserve the layout of a page. They’re commonly used for documents like user manuals, eBooks, application forms, and scanned documents, to name just a few."  The operative words there being 'read only'.

If you want to edit the content you'd normally pay a substantial fee for PDF Editor software to open and re-save the format.  Sadly,  Evernote can't do that for you,  even as a subscriber.

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17 hours ago, Coswell Tarp said:

FOUR YEARS AGO someone points out "hey, why doesn't evernote have AN UTTERLY STANDARD FEATURE like being able to highlight text" 

1150557620_ScreenShot2020-05-24at4_14_02PM.png.3815845e7923f14ec3c9c79b02e98eed.png
I'm able to highlight text in Evernote notes    
(Mac and iPad) - a long time feature   
I'm looking forward to colour options


You're posting in a discussion on editing pdf attachment files

This requires a pdf editor app; OCR may also be required 

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6 hours ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  You had a small meltdown over highlighting text...

Hi. You decided to be snarky and condescending and accuse someone of having a "meltdown" when they said something that you don't like. Criticizing evernote for chronic lack of responsiveness is hardly a "meltdown." 

1. The evernote help article https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005587-How-to-annotate-images-and-PDFs-in-Evernote refers to using a "highlight tool" to annotate a pdf. I agree with the OP -- from 4 years ago -- that drawing a freehand rectangle leads to messy highlights and is not what anyone means by the term "highlighting" a pdf.

2.

7 hours ago, gazumped said:

It's quite possible,  and has been for some time,  to annotate and highlight text in PDF files,  and to highlight in a text note.

No, it is not and it's hard to read this as anything other than a willful misreading of the entire thread. Drawing a colored rectangle over a document is not "highlighting" the text -- at least not in the sense that the vast majority of people mean when they refer to "highlighting" a document, hence the comments by the OP and by Thora.  

 

 

 

 

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On 5/24/2020 at 7:14 AM, Coswell Tarp said:

I have to say as an evernote user it is utterly enraging how often I encouter threads like this.

Hi. Reads as slightly over the top criticism to me,  hence 'meltdown' which was meant in an ironic and friendly manner, regardless of how it came across to you.  As I carefully explained earlier,  editing and highlighting within a PDF requires an (expensive) editor,  which Evernote is not.  The help link you quoted shows clearly that all additions and annotations are overlays on the existing text,  and not amendments to it. There are already explanations in this thread of how to draw a straight line and how others deal with highlighting.  Sorry you're frustrated by Evernote's features in that regard,  but I don't see there being any major changes.  I will allow that I have frequently been wrong,  and add the caveat that Evernote are working on new features as we speak.  Maybe in the next iteration... 

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On a Mac (or iOS) I would recommend PDF Expert as an app that can really edit the pdf content.

It even works from within of an EN note: „Open with“, opens in PDF Expert, edit there, close, will return the edited pdf into the note from which it was opened. When the note is now closed (or saved), the changes will be burned into the pdf contained in the EN note. Works pretty seamless.

The build in features of EN is not editing the pdf itself, it is more like „drawing“ on an invisible layer above of the underlying pdf. One may like it or not, but I don’t think this should be the issue to discuss in an unfriendly manner.

The help article about annotating images and pdfs clearly describes annotation - it does never mention editing the pdf itself (what would ne needed if a text in itself should be highlighted, instead of placing a color strip above the text to highlighter it). If one tries to do the same with a real pdf editor like the one described above, it is clear that working on the text itself gives greater accuracy. But this comes for a price, to be paid on download.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005587

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On 5/25/2020 at 10:01 AM, gazumped said:

Hi.  You had a small meltdown over highlighting text...

It's quite possible,  and has been for some time,  to annotate and highlight text in PDF files,  and to highlight in a text note.

The How-To Geek site describes PDFs as "typically used to distribute read-only documents that preserve the layout of a page. They’re commonly used for documents like user manuals, eBooks, application forms, and scanned documents, to name just a few."  The operative words there being 'read only'.

If you want to edit the content you'd normally pay a substantial fee for PDF Editor software to open and re-save the format.  Sadly,  Evernote can't do that for you,  even as a subscriber.

 

I'm with Coswell Tarp. The pdf annotation feature set in Evernote is complete $hit. What's more, it hasn't changed in at least four years. They need to either 1) buy Notability and integrate it into Evernote, 2) create an integration with Notability that indexes the PDFs in Evernote, or 3) build the Notability feature set in Evernote.

The existing Evernote pdf annotation feature set is like something built by two high-schoolers in a weekend hackathon three years ago.

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4 hours ago, drcggray said:

The pdf annotation feature set in Evernote is complete ...

The annotation is quite basic and I rarely use it;  preferring the feature-set of dedicated apps

>>They need to either 1) buy Notability ...

I don't believe Evernote needs to do anything

Notability is a great editor and I use it often     
It supports handwriting, and pdf annotation    
My Notability documents are stored in the Evernote service (indexed for text search)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I used Evernote heavily for many years at the very beginning of the app, then I stopped and now I switch back again basically for study note taking. I must say that I am very disappointed with the PDF annotation capabilities. Being familiar with iAnnotate, Evernote's annotation is terrible. Even simple things like highlighting text looks awful. Side text comments also look terrible, they might be ok for casual annotation but don't expect writing even a short paragraph as side comment.

I really believe that Evernote's team should work to vastly improve annotation capabilities, they are barely useless.

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  • 10 months later...

I too am very disappointed to read there is no basic highlighting of text such that I can be precise and select the length of highlight beyond a single line. Evernote should stop promoting itself as being useful for researchers without something so basic.

The resolution of pdf when I zoom to 150% is totally unsatisfactory too.

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The annotation works - for basic needs. You can end up with a pdf looking very colorful, with highlighter and solid lines, markers and added text. Not having a Zoom function yet is a missing feature, already requested in a voting string here in the forum. You can add your support there.

Annotation for me is a quick process while reading - no need to be print quality neat. To get annotation quality beyond that you need to get a specialized tool. I am using PDF Expert to this end - but don’t really need it that often.

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