I recently received an email about using the Text Highlighter tool in Acrobat:

I enjoy your articles on using Adobe. One item I use very often is the Text Highlighter tool. I mark text in different colors depending on the substance of the text itself. To do so, I mark the text in question and then open the Properties Box and then select the color I need.

This can be very time consuming as I am constantly switching back and forth on the colors. I was wondering, is there is a faster way to select a different color?

Mark E. Schell
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Unit Corporation

To move the text box, click inside the box and drag it. To move the entire callout, click either the end-point line or an edge of the text box, and drag it. To change the color, opacity, or line characteristics, use the Select tool to right-click the callout, choose Properties, and select the options you want.
Opening the File in Adobe Acrobat X Pro. Adobe Acrobat X Pro. Underscored blanks into fillable text fields. You may need to add. Out by Mac users in.

At first I was stumped, but then I remembered the solution!

The next time you need to add text to a PDF in Acrobat Pro, try the Text Box tool. It’s part of the Comment group, so go to View > Toolbars > Comments & Markup to access it. Unlike most of the other comment tools, text you enter in a Text Box remains visible all the time; it doesn’t close up to an icon like a pop-up note.

The PropertiesBar in Acrobat which offers quick access to many tool options.

Read on to learn about using the Properties Bar to quickly change text highlight colors.

Showing the Properties Toolbar

To show the Properties Toolbar, try one of the following:

Right-click in a free area the Acrobat toolbar and choose Properties Bar
View—>Toolbars—> Properties Bar
Use a keyboard command
WIN: Ctrl-E
MAC: CMD-E

The Properties Bar appears:

Not much to look at!

However, this toolbar is context sensitive. The Properties Bar will offer different options depending on what is selected in your Acrobat document.

Docking the Properties Bar

Since the Properties Bar lets you quickly get to many tool options, I recommend docking it for quick access:

Quit Acrobat to make the toolbar settings “sticky” for future Acrobat sessions.

Add Text Box In Acrobat Pro For Mac

Using the Properties Bar for Quick Access to Text Color Highlights

Once docked, the Properties Bar will show available options. To use it for quick text highlights, do this:

Open a PDF document
Choose View—>Toolbars—> Comment and Markup
Select the Highlight Text tool
The Properties Bar changes to reflect options available
Choose the color needed for the text highlight, then select text on the document.

This tip allows you to quickly use a lot of colors… maybe even too many!

Use the Properties Bar

The Properties Bar allows you to quickly change the properties in Acrobat annotations, including a few which might not immediately come to mind…

Color, Style and Size of a font within a sticky note
Font, size, color and style of text within a Text Box annotation
Easily edit form field options such as font, border, etc.
Change bookmark colors and links

Once you dock the Properties Bar, many new options will quickly become apparent.

Active9 months ago

I have an Adobe Acrobat PDF file on Macintosh OS X Lion that I need to overlay some plain text on top of at a particular position relative to the original PDF. Previously I have created a Microsoft Word document that contains the positioned text and printed the page twice, once for the original PDF and a second time for the Microsoft Word document to get the overlay. This is rather cumbersome and there is some slop sending the paper through the printer two times such that the text is not exactly aligned between the two print outs.

Instead I would like to create a new PDF (or perhaps some other format file) that combines the original PDF together with the positioned text I want to overlay such as in a Microsoft Word document. The overlay should be transparent and not obscure anything from the original PDF, just like the effect of my manual double printing on the same sheet of paper.

I have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro X as well as other Adobe tools such as illustrator and wonder if one of these tools or another Adobe tool provides the needed ability or must I go outside the Adobe family of tools to accomplish this?

Hennes

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WilliamKFWilliamKF

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3 Answers

Since you have Adobe Acrobat, you can use the 'typewriter' tool to insert or edit a textbox. Look at Add text using Add Or Edit Text Box (Typewriter tool)

YedricYedric

I am reasonably sure that one the Adobe products you mentioned can do this.

I can offer another option, which is the LibreOffice PDF import. You can import any PDF document into the current LibreOffice version (3.6). Then you'll have an editable document in which you can place additional items wherever you like.

Add Text Box In Acrobat Pro For Mac Free

Stefan SeidelStefan Seidel

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I used to import PDF form into Libre draw as image background, then using a text box to type addition text. Good luck

Adobe Acrobat Pro For Mac

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