Easier way to highlight text in Adobe Acrobat?

Question

When I read PDF, I constantly highlight text. But the distance between the text and the Highlight button is quite far, like this:

and this becomes very annoying when I need to do a lot of highlight.

I'm wondering if there is any plugin could provide alternative shortcuts for highlight?, for example, double-click text to highlight, or a nearby prompt button after selecting a text.

How can I do it?

Notice: Someone may argue that I can click Highlight button first, and then every text I select would be highlighted, but this would negate the action of select. For me, I constantly selecting text when reading PDF, it's just a habit of reading things, and I don't want to highlight them.

Answer 1

You can create an autohotkey script with a code like this one. It basically "clicks" for you where you want.

!^+h::             ; Alt(!) CTRL(^) shift(+) AND "h"    
MouseMove, 383, 77  ; relative position of the Acrobat "Highlight button" 
Sleep, 100
MouseClick
return

How to use it:

1. First you need to install Autohotkey
2. Then create a file myshorcut.ahk with the code above and move this file in your start menu (on windows C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

3. In Acrobat, select the text you want to highlight and press your chosen shortcut (in my code it’s Alt + CTRL + shift + h)

   • You can use the AHK Window Spy (provided with autohotkey) to find the position needed for your code (windows or button name etc.)

You can also add just before the return a new line with Send, {CTRLDOWN}s{CTRLUP}{ESC}. This will save the pdf.

Answer 2

Here is a more exact way to highlight any text in Adobe PDF document: ^+h:: ; CTRL(^) shift(+) AND "h" ControlClick, AVL_AVView2, 222.pdf - Adobe Acrobat Pro,, Left, 1, NA Sleep, 100 return

Answer 3

Use a shortcut, you have to enable them first in your preferences, here is the adobe list of shortcuts and how to access them click me