I believe this workaround may satisfy everyone.  If I open the Full Reader Search, and perform the same search within the current document, Reader produces a list of all instances (results) of the searched text.  If you select one of those instances, the document advances to the relevant portion of the text.  However, the search text may still not be highlighted.  Select the same instance of the results list again, and the text now becomes highlighted.  This seems to work regardless of the setting for "Enable search highlights from external highlight server" in the Preferences.

I had the exact same problem. Simple soultion:

1) Uninstall Reader 9.4.5

2) Install Reader 9.4

3) After installation, go to "Edit > Preferences > Updater" and click the radio button that says "Do not download or install updates automatically.

Hope this helps!

I updated to Adobe Acrobat 9.4.5 recently, and whereas the highlighting of text found in a text search used to work routinely, now searched text is highlighted only about 5% of the time when I step through a document, and I can't figure out why it does work a small percentage of the time.  This is one of the major, common uses of Adobe Acrobat, and Adobe has left this issue festering for weeks now. It is making my work harder right now, and when I'm paying Adobe for this basic function, it is truly the sign of poor quality control at Adobe.  Adobe, fix this problem soon, and stop listing this item as "possibly solved" until it is solved!

     My activity had the Adobe Pro 9.4.5 update pushed to users late last week.  Several knowledgeable users agree with the following error characterization: Adobe search will not highlight the first occurrence of a term on a page.  If there is a second occurrence on a page it will highlight after clicking the Find Next arrow/button.  Then, if you reverse the search direction, it will highlight the first occurrence on that page.  If there is only one occurrence on a page, it will not highlight or FIND the search term.

    If you think you are missing more occurrences per page of the search term, copy and paste the suspect area to a text editor and you will probably see the image you recognized as your search term does not actually contain the exact character string you searched for.

     The appearance of a very light gray vertical line next to the search term seems to be entirely dependent on desktop/window color or theme selection or setup.  The default Office/Windows configuration seems most likely to show this bar/pointer.  I have never been able to see it with my low-intensity higher-contrast color scheme.

    An interim work-around for Adobe Pro is to drop down the search dialog and select "Full Acrobat Search...  Shift+Ctrl+F." Then, in the results window, select a hit-line twice and the search term should highlight in the document window.

      OtherNMCI users/customers: this activity's local NMCI COR said it is best for all users having this problem to report it to the NMCI Service Desk as their priorities are set directly by the number of affected users.

Regards,

sierra.charlie

Not that it would matter, but maybe a Better Business Bureau complaint

(

Agreed.  I've been a well-paying user of every Acrobat version since version

3, and this functionality has been in all versions until now.

Are you kidding me!!?  With as many daily updates as Adobe pushes out for Acrobat and Reader... you'd have thought this was fixed by now.

PDF's are used for everything these days. I use them constantly at work.

It is completely unacceptable that Adobe flubbed this MOST USED feature in their software.

At first I thought this was some kind of screw up with my computer's operating system... or maybe even malware.  Nope, just a botched software update that's been ignored for over a month now.

Sincerely,

Pissed Off Adobe User (Brett W.)

dmwhk wrote:

 

This thread, and this bug, have now been running 37 days - when is Adobe going to fix such a manifestly obvious error in a function that almost everyone uses?

Hard to say. 37 days isn't long in the development world. Maybe the next release. Maybe the one after that...

dmwhk wrote:

 

It is not "possibly answered" as indicated

That is an automatic function of the forum software. As soon as someone replies, it's "possibly answered". Then again, possibly not.

dmwhk wrote:

How can we remove that status and get Adobe to pay attention?

Again you can't remove it butyou can always file a bug report although by now, I'm sure they are aware of it. This is a user to user forum and not a route to Adobe support so don't expect to see anything in here (although they've responded in these forums before).

Same issue here, happened after I uninstalled Reader X, installed 9.4, then updated to 9.45.

Very annoying, but not as bad as X's tiny search buttons and the blocking part of the page with the search drop-down, which is why I moved back to 9.x

If they let me move search back to the toolbar, with larger buttons, then I'll go back to 10.x  (Make it the same as Firefox's search controls)

I had the same issue, but after upgrading to X it was OK.

September? That's interesting. Were you told that directly from Adobe, and if so, when was that?

I'm a reporter for Law Technology News and just yesterday an Adobe spokeswoman told me they have a date in mind but that she's not at liberty to disclose it. I wrote an article about it here.

If anyone who reads this thread is a lawyer and experiences the bug, then I'd like to talk with you privately. My email address is ekoblentz(at)alm.com.

- Evan Koblenz

As someone here suggested, I complained to the Better Business Bureau. I own the full Pro version, which is not cheap.

The BBB told Adobe to communicate with me.

I received the following from someone with poor English skills named Mradul Kumar [e-mail address removed]

Acrobat Engineering is working on these Bugs on priority and it should (not yet guaranteed) more likely be fixed in our next release(Acrobat 9.4.6). Next release should be coming somewhere around September month.

Please inundate Adobe & this person with your complaints.

This has gone on too long already, & to be told another 2 months (which we all know is a lie based on their past communications so far) is UNACCEPTABLE.

Evan, I'm a lawyer and, in fact, I sent an e-mail to LTN giving them a

head's up on the bug.  Let me know if I can help.  Saw your article.  Nice

job.

Bryan Capps

Bryan, I sent you a private message just now.

Thank you so much, Michael... that actually fixed my issue and I'm on a PC.  I can't tell you how frustrating this has been!

Good article.

There is another bug that Adobe won't even recognize because they can't duplicate it, but it only happens in 9.4.5 Acrobat Pro, & despite their nay-saying, it's a very REAL problem that THEY created with this disastrous update.

It's hard to explain, & most people in this thread are Reader users.

In short, while editing, the last edit made often pops up in a new edit, making it IMPOSSIBLE to continue with the current edit until going back (sometimes many pages) find the last edit that is skewing things. It's infuriating & adds so much time to the process of editing for clients that I'm ready to abandong Adobe completely.

This means I'll not use any Adobe products. If they can't make it function smoothly & do so in a timely manner, I have NO respect for this company.

Adobe STINKS right now.

In our tests today (08/03/11) with Acrobat Pro 9.4.5, the problem occurs on our Windows 7 computers but not our Vista computers.

Also, the "Find" feature is sort of working in that it does take the user to the page with the first matching text (but it fails to highlight the matching text) - clicking the "Next Find" button cause Acrobat to highlight the next (and subsequent) matching text ON THE SAME PAGE.  If the next matching text is instead on another page, Acrobat again fails to hightlight only the first matching text on that page...

After reading these posts I no longer feel crazy. As suggested I called Adobe to find out if the fix would really launch on Sept 13 as stated in the article referenced here and opted to have them call me back rather then wait on the phone. They did return my call, but because I am only a single user in a large medical center and did not have the serial number to my Adobe Acrobat Pro (IS installed), they said they could not help me. Unless you have your serial number you cannot access technical support?? Really?? Why if I did not have the product would I call for help? And I didn't think you could do multiple downloads of programs anymore, so what's the difference?  As a backup I also emailed the preson at Adobe w the same question. Will be curious to see if they answer or ask for my serial number. I am still amazed how a major software company could have such a glaring glitch and not find and put out

a solution sooner? This would never happen in our industry. If anything the whole team would work extended hours for resolution so that we could get it out to and keep our customers happy!

Hi Wuzisname,

This was mentioned before... but it's not a fix, just a temporary band-aid.  I don't like using that separate window, it just seems to get in my way and requires you to click on found search hits.  Furthermore, Adobe doesn't need any more time than they've already had.  What are they doing??...holding out until version 11 to give us basic search functionality (back)??? There is only one Apple Inc. in this world, knock it off Adobe.

See my previous post about Foxit Reader.  One nice feature it has is tabs for all of your open PDFs.  So far I love it.

Ever since I got disgusted with Adobe, who obviously couldn't give a darn about users who have been using their buggy Adobe Reader, I've been using the FREE Foxit Reader!

Adobe has ignored me and I don't have to take it. Neither do you!

Download it HERE:

[malware link removed]

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