I want to disable table detection on MacOS Preview. Before Tahoe, I was able to highlight text in tables, but after updating, I can't anymore. When I try to highlight the text, it selects its 'cell'.
MacBook Air 15″, macOS 26.0
Give the free Skim PDF reader a try.
Thank you for your answer. However, I don’t think this is a problem I’ll be able to resolve. Even though I can select the text inside the cell, I can’t use the highlight tool on it. Highlighting is a very helpful tool for me in my college PDFs, and I use it a LOT on my Mac. Now, I won’t be able to use it on part of the text. What a shame.
In Tahoe 26.1, there are no settings in Preview to control the behavior you seek. Instead…
A single click on a table cell in Preview selects that cell. If there are just rows of text in that cell, then a double-click selects the first word and a triple-click selects all words in that first row of text in the cell.
If the cell contains numbers, a triple-click will select the first row of numerical data whether that is a single number, or a hyphenated range of numbers.
The software that originates the PDF may play a role in how the PDF content is written, and the degree with which Preview interprets that PDF structure and enables your interaction.
Preview highlights cells instead of text in tables
