Three Ways to Highlight PDF on Mac

Learning and reading documents carefully require applying specific techniques such as underlining and highlighting the essential parts. Many readers highlight their PDF documents to note down the critical concepts or extract relevant information.

If you don't know how to highlight PDF on Mac, we will provide you with a PDF highlighter - UPDF for Mac, and quick and simple steps that can improve your learning experience.

Part 1: Why Can't I Highlight My PDF Mac?

Are you finding it difficult to highlight PDFs on Mac? If yes, there can be relevant causes of this problem that we have fetched below that prevents you from editing the PDF file:

Many users are not aware of the "Text Selection" tool on Mac that allows the editing and changing of a PDF file. Through this tool, you can select the text on a PDF easily and can highlight it. However, if you don't know how to navigate this tool, you won’t be able to highlight the selected text.
Due to security purposes, many PDF files are protected by a password to prevent intruders from editing the file. If you come across a password-protected file, it means that the owner of the PDF file has restricted the editing, and as a result, you can't highlight the text on the PDF.
If you are trying to select a text embedded in an image, you won’t be able to select and highlight the actual text on it. The reason is that many PDF tools don’t support highlighting the text image as you can't select the content on the image.

Part 2: How to Easily Highlight/Annotate PDF on Mac with Text/Note/Shape?

Reading and editing PDF files on Mac requires a skillful PDF editor like UPDF that can perform various actions on your PDF file. UPDF, a PDF annotator for Mac, has numerous options to add annotations to the file in a delightful user interface. You can add, edit and delete the text on a PDF document instantly in a friendly ecosystem. It also provides multiple features to organize PDF pages in a systematic way. More importantly, it allows you to save the changed PDF without a watermark.

When it comes to highlighting any particular part of the PDF, UPDF allows you to make any specific text stand out quickly. You can underline, strikeout, and add color to the text to highlight it for quick revision. The steps to highlight PDF on Mac are as follows:

Step 1: Import PDF File

To initiate the process, begin by launching the tool UPDF on your computer. Click to open its main user interface and tap on the "Open File" button displayed on top. Select the PDF file from the browser that you want to highlight and import it into the tool to proceed.

Step 2: Choose the Comment Tool

On the menu bar on top, select "Comment" by clicking on it in the left toolbar which will display various options to add annotations.

Step 3: How Do I Highlight the PDF on Mac

From the displayed options, tap on the "Highlight" icon and select the highlighting brush color. Now, apply the highlighting tool to the text that you find important. Once done, press the "Command + S" buttons from the Mac keyboard to save the recent changes in the PDF file.

That's the solution to highlight PDF on mac with UPDF. Moreover, if you don't want to download a program on your device, you can also highlight PDFs online. But you need to note that if your file size is too big, it cannot be uploaded to most online tools.

Part 3: How to Highlight PDF on Mac in Preview?

Preview is a free app for the Mac operating system to view and edit PDF documents conveniently. In addition to reading the PDF documents on this app, you can edit the file by inserting shapes, tables, charts, and images. Also, you can resize, crop, and flip the images present in the PDF files effortlessly with this app. People also use the Preview app on their Mac to virtually sign their documents through e-signatures.

Along with its basic editing tools, the app also includes annotation tools through which you can add notes and can highlight important text while reading a document. By reading the following steps, you will get a clear picture of how to highlight a PDF on Mac through Preview:

Step 1: To start the process, open your Preview app on the Mac and browse the PDF file that you want to highlight. Also, you can import the PDF file in this app from your iPhone, iPad, Camera, and Scanner directly by tapping on the "File" option from the menu bar.

Step 2: Select the text you want to highlight and then click on the "Pencil" icon displayed on the top toolbar. Thus, the app will automatically highlight the selected text.

how to highlight on mac pdf with preview

Step 3: If you want to change the color of the highlighter, click on the arrow adjacent to the highlighter icon and select the color you want to apply.

Part 4: How to Highlight a PDF on Mac with PDF Expert?

Another reliable tool for Mac users to read and view PDF files along with editing options is the PDF Expert tool. Like other PDF editors for Mac, this tool also comprises key features to add and delete text in numerous fonts. You can draw illustrations and graphs through its drawing tools flawlessly. To add more details to a PDF file, you can add shapes and diagrams for enhanced explanations.

One of the amazing features of PDF expert is that it allows Mac users to utilize annotation tools to highlight PDF Mac text in a well-designed interface. You can choose the color of the highlighter tool and can easily apply it to the selected part of the PDF.

Step 1: Launch PDF Expert on the PC and import the PDF file by tapping on the "Select File" button or dragging and dropping the PDF file on the interface.

how to highlight in pdf on mac with pdf expert

Step 2: Tap on the "Annotations" tool and click on the "Highlight" icon. Now select the part of the text and drag it to make it highlighted. If you want to change the color of the highlighter, pick and apply the colors from the toolbar given on the right side.

how to highlight a pdf on mac with pdf expert

Comparison with 3 ways to highlight PDF

	UPDF	Preview	PDF Expert
System	Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android	Mac	Mac, iOS
Price	Yearly: $39.99 Perpetual: $59.99	Free	Yearly: $79.99 Lifetime: $139.99
Highlight
Squiggly line, Text Callout, Stickers, Text Callout
Stamps
Add and edit watermarks, background
Convert Scanned PDFs with OCR
Replace pages
Extract pages
Share PDF via a link
Create a PDF from Capture

Wrapping Up

While reviewing or proofreading the PDF file, many Mac users highlight the important details given in the content for their ease. If you don't know how to highlight PDFs on Mac, this article has listed some top-rated PDF editors for you. To ensure the best results in a great responsive manner, we would recommend UPDF as the ultimate PDF tool for macOS.