How to Fix PDF Highlighting Creating an Oval Shape Instead of Text
Question details
The user is attempting to highlight text in a PDF document, but the tool creates an oval shape annotation instead of snapping to and highlighting the actual text.
- Product
- PDF Editors
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Trying to highlight text in a PDF document that was generated by scanning a physical page or printing a website view to PDF.
- Observed behavior
- The PDF highlighting tool draws an oval shape around the selected area because the document contains a flattened image rather than selectable text.
Check if your PDF contains selectable text by attempting to copy and paste a single word. If you cannot select individual characters with your cursor, the document is an image-based PDF and will require OCR or redownloading.
Download the Original Native PDF File
The easiest and most reliable way to resolve highlighting issues is to ensure you are working with a native PDF rather than an image generated by your browser's print function.
Using the 'Print to PDF' feature on a webpage often flattens the content into an image, making text unselectable. Downloading the original source file ensures all text layers remain intact.
Go back to the website, email, or system where you originally found or viewed the document.
Look for a specific 'Download PDF', 'Export', or 'Save Document' button on the webpage instead of using the browser's 'Print' menu.
Open the newly downloaded native PDF in your PDF editor, select the Highlight tool, and drag it across the text to confirm it highlights properly.
Run OCR to Make Text Selectable
If downloading the original file is impossible, you can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert the image-based text back into selectable text.
Use Shape Tools as a Manual Workaround
If you do not have access to OCR features, you can manually mark the text by drawing transparent shapes over the image.
Easily Edit and Highlight Image-Based PDFs with WPS Office
WPS Office provides a comprehensive PDF toolkit equipped with advanced OCR capabilities. It can quickly convert scanned documents or printed web pages into fully editable and selectable text, preventing annotation errors like the oval shape issue.
- 1. Open the PDF: Launch WPS Office and open your image-based or scanned PDF document.
- 2. Run the OCR feature: Navigate to the 'Tools' tab on the top ribbon and click on 'OCR' to convert the document image into selectable text.
- 3. Highlight your text: Go to the 'Comment' tab, select the 'Highlight' tool, and smoothly drag your cursor over the newly recognized text.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my PDF editor think the text is an image?
When you use the 'Print to PDF' function on a webpage or scan a physical paper, the resulting PDF is created as a flat image, similar to a photograph. Because there are no actual text characters embedded in the file's data, the PDF editor cannot snap to the text, which results in freehand or shape-based annotations instead of clean highlights.
What is the exact difference between printing to PDF and downloading a PDF?
Downloading a PDF retrieves the original source file with all its text layers, links, and formatting intact. 'Printing to PDF' essentially takes a visual screenshot of how the page looks and saves those images into a PDF container, which permanently removes text selectability.
How can I remove the oval shapes I accidentally created?
You can easily remove unintended annotations. Open the 'Comments' or 'Annotations' pane typically found on the right side of your PDF editor, locate the oval comment in the list, right-click it, and select 'Delete'. Alternatively, use the Select tool to click directly on the oval shape in the document and press the Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard.
Is OCR necessary for all PDF highlighting?
No, OCR is only necessary for scanned documents or image-based PDFs where you cannot normally select the text. Native PDFs generated digitally from word processors like Microsoft Word or WPS Writer already contain selectable text layers and can be highlighted immediately without any extra processing.
