Mark up articles, contracts and study notes. The highlighter snaps to the real text under it, so highlights line up neatly with the words instead of looking hand-drawn.
Do it now in the free PDF editorOpens in your browser. No sign-up, no watermark — your PDF is never uploaded.
Pick Highlight and choose a color in the bar above the page.
Drag across the text you want to mark, or click a single word to highlight just that word.
Click Download to save the highlighted PDF.
See how it works
1Pick Highlight
2Drag over the words — the highlight snaps to the text
Highlighting that follows the text
Drag diagonally from the first word to the last one. For a selection that spans several lines, each line gets its own highlight bar that starts and ends at the words you covered — the result looks like the highlighting in a PDF reader, not a rectangle across the page. A quick click on a word highlights the whole word.
Changing or removing a highlight
Switch to Select and click a highlight to change its color or opacity.
Drag it or its corners to adjust it by hand.
Press Delete to remove it, or Ctrl+Z to undo the last highlight.
Other ways to mark up a PDF
Highlights are just one kind of markup. Draw freehand underlines or circles with Draw, point at something with an arrow from Shapes, and add comments in the margin with the Text tool. To hide something rather than emphasize it, use Whiteout or Redact.
Studying with color codes? Use one color per topic — for example yellow for definitions, green for examples and blue for dates. The color you choose stays selected for the next highlights.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the highlight jump to the text?
When you release the mouse, the editor finds the text under your selection and fits the highlight to those words, line by line. Over images or scans, where there is no text, the highlight stays exactly as you drew it.
Which colors are available?
Yellow, green, blue, pink and orange, plus any custom color. You can also change the opacity.
Can I highlight every occurrence of a word?
Yes. Press Ctrl+F, search for the word and click Highlight all.
Will the text under the highlight still be readable and selectable?
Yes. The highlight is semi-transparent and drawn over the page, so the text stays readable and remains selectable in the saved PDF.
Ready to try it?Drop your PDF into the editor and download the result in seconds.
