PDF Troubles: Can’t Select Text in PDF Files? Follow These Easy Methods

For their versatility and compatibility across various devices, PDF is the first format to be used. Even this has become an integral part of our digital lives. Its offers to manipulate your data, it allows you to select the text data to copy, print or edit. But what if you can’t select text in PDF to perform any action? Maybe the owner of the file has disabled the highlighting option.

In this case, selecting/highlighting a text is impossible. Hence, through this post and explore the reasons behind this problem and provide solutions to help you enable text selection in PDF files.

Can’t Select Text in PDF Files – What Could Be the Reasons?

1. The user is trying to select a Scanned PDF or Image-based Content.
2. Chances of having Security Restrictions on a particular file.
3. There can be some PDF conversion Issues because of improper conversion.
4. Sometimes compatibility or software glitches become a reason.
5. Generally corrupted or damaged PDF files never allow selecting/highlighting of a text.

It’s important to identify that what’s the actual reason and based on that complete checking must be done, and act accordingly by choosing the right method.

In most of the cases, the reasons that come out are: The Files are restricted, and the file got damaged. In case of software glitches, the user can reboot the software or reinstall the software. If the file is improperly converted into a PDF file, then try to repeat the same conversion process properly.

Here we will be considering that the File is restricted and due to that reason, a person can’t select text in PDF.

If users think that the file they have is corrupted then they can Repair Corrupted PDF File easily.

How a PDF File Protection Can be Disabled Manually?

When we talk about how to select a text in a protected PDF file. It’s clear that it requires removing the protection and enabling text select in PDF file. This can be done using Adobe Acrobat Pro Application. Users simply need to purchase the subscription and start using it to unlock the file to select the text in PDF files.

1. Launch Adobe Acrobat on your PC to start it up. Make sure Adobe Acrobat is installed in its most recent version.
2. Open the Restricted PDF by clicking “File” in the menu bar and choosing “Open” to locate and launch the restricted PDF.
3. You will be requested to enter the password if the PDF file is password-protected. Enter the right password to continue. You won’t be able to lift the restrictions if you don’t know the password.
4. Once the PDF file has been opened, select the “Tools” pane on the right-hand side to navigate to the “Protection” tab. Choose “Encrypt” from the “Protection” column, and then pick “Remove Security.“
5. A dialogue box indicating that you are going to remove anything will display.

This is how one can simply enable text selection in PDF just by removing the applied restrictions from PDF files. Follow the same steps when having multiple PDF files which have restrictions.

Can’t Select Text in PDF Files – Try The Instant Way to Enable Text Selection in PDF

Besides the manual solutions, there can be such situations in which a user has multiple PDF files which have protection. There we generally do not suggest using the manual method as it will take more time to remove the restrictions individually. Using a Smart PDF Unlocker Software will be an ideal solution. As it helps to convert secured PDF to unsecured PDF files.

For Windows Users

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Users can add or perform particular actions like copying, printing, editing, highlighting, and extracting by simply removing restrictions from the imported PDF files.

• Download the application and run it on your Windows computer for enabling text selection in PDF file.

• On the main page, select Add Files/Add Folder to add the PDF files.

• Depending on your needs, choose to Save or Print the document

• After selecting the target directory, click the Change button to save the unlocked files. To enable text selection in PDF, simply click the Unlock tab.

Also Read: How A user can Remove Edit Protection From PDF

Conclusion

It becomes a frustrating experience when you can’t select text in PDF. By understanding the potential reasons and solutions discussed in this article, you will be able to enable text selection in PDF. Some of the basic tricks can be used to resolve this. However, for file restriction cases, we have explained some methods that can be used to fix them. To regain the ability to select and interact with text in your PDF files, chose the most suitable solution.