I want to highlight, preferably permanently, all instances of a search result in a PDF. For example, I want to highlight all examples of the word 'class' in a piece about Karl Marx to make finding the material I need to make notes on easier.

I suspect the reason I can't do this on either Foxit or Adobe Reader is that they both re-scan the document every time you highlight a search result, and this takes a long time.

Is it possible at all?

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5 Answers

Open the PDF using Firefox browser and click the "highlight all" button after you open the Find dialog.

Find Dialog

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Once you have pressed Ctrl+F and searched the word, if you press Shift+Enter, it would higlight all the words matching your inquiry

The workaround I discovered is to use the redaction tool. Change your redaction property from black to yellow, then use the "Text Overlay" function to re-enter that same word on the redaction mark

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Free version of PDF-XChange Editor (Windows, Linux via Wine) highlights all entries for the keyword, and on top of that adds colored ticks on the scrollbar à la Chromium. Also, navigation (scrolling/jumping back and forth across pages) is as fast and the program remains as responsive as simpler yet more lightweight alternatives such as MuPDF or Sumatra PDF even when working with huge PDF files (hundreds of megabytes, thousands pages with illustrations).

All instances of a given word can be displayed by using Find… (Ctrl + F) tool for a quick preliminary lookup:

Using Search… (Ctrl + Shift + F) tool for additional gathering of a complete list for all encounters. Here, it only took one second to find 1139 entries in a 1300-page document, which I think is quite fast. Note, however, that this is "clean" document properly compiled from LaTeX source, and on a file that's been scanned and OCRed it could take longer:

Finally, by choosing Options… → Annotate search results → Highlight Search Results one can add permanent marks to the document and also save the changes to the PDF file:

Disclaimer: I am only a user, not a developer of PDF-XChange Editor and I'm not affiliated with Tracker software company.

Open the PDF in MS Word (presumably Google Docs as well). Then select replace -> enter your search word or phrase and repeat that in the replace word box -> then near bottom select the replace Format drop down and select highlight -> then select replace all and it will highlight all instances. When done -> Save as PDF.

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