How to Remove Highlights and Text Formatting in Adobe Acrobat
Question details
The user needs to remove unwanted highlights or clear text formatting from a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat to restore its original appearance.
- Product
- Adobe Acrobat
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Editing a PDF document where text has been previously highlighted or formatted with bolding and needs to be reverted to plain text.
- Observed behavior
- Text displays with colored highlights or unwanted formatting such as bold text or altered font styles.
Before making changes, determine if the formatting is a text attribute (like a bold font) or an actual annotation (like a yellow highlight markup), as they require different removal methods.
Remove Text Formatting (Bold, Italic, etc.) via Edit Mode
Use this method if the text itself was altered using Acrobat's text editing tools.
Text formatting changes, such as bold or italic styles, modify the underlying font properties. To reverse these changes, you need to use the standard text editing interface rather than the comments panel.
Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat. Click on the 'Edit PDF' tool located in the right-hand panel to enter editing mode.
Click and drag your cursor over the text that has the unwanted formatting to highlight it.
Locate the formatting controls in the right-hand Format panel. If the text is unexpectedly bold, click the large 'T' icon or toggle the Bold/Italic buttons to clear the applied styles and restore the original character formatting.
Delete Highlight Annotations
Use this approach if a yellow or colored highlight marker was applied over the text.
Easily Remove PDF Highlights and Formatting in WPS Office
WPS Office includes a robust built-in PDF editor that allows you to effortlessly remove highlights, clear text formatting, and edit PDF documents just like a word processor without needing expensive software.
- 1. Open PDF in WPS Office: Launch WPS Office on your device and open your target PDF document.
- 2. Remove Highlight Annotations: Navigate to the 'Comment' tab, click on the highlighted text, and press the Delete key to instantly remove the color overlay.
- 3. Clear Text Formatting: Switch to the 'Edit' tab, click 'Edit Content', select your text, and use the text properties panel on the right to adjust font styles or clear bold formatting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't I select and delete a highlight in my PDF?
If you cannot select a highlight, the PDF might be a flattened image or a scanned document. In this case, the highlight is merged into the image layer. You may need to use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to convert the document into editable text first.
How do I remove all highlights from a PDF at once?
In Adobe Acrobat, open the 'Comments' pane on the right. Filter by 'Highlights', select all the listed highlight comments by pressing Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac), and press the Delete key to remove them simultaneously.
What is the difference between highlighted text and text background formatting?
Highlighting is typically an annotation layered over the text, which can be selected and deleted as a separate object. Text background formatting is an intrinsic property of the text block itself, which must be modified or cleared via the text editing or formatting panel.
