PDFLaTeX Highlights – How to Prevent Removal in Included PDFs

graphicshighlightingpdf

I have a figure in the PDF format and there are some texts in the figure (pdf) are highlighted. However, when I include this PDF file into latex document, the highlights are automatically removed. Do you know to to preserve the highlights? I am using PdfLaTeX to compile the TeX documents. The minimal working example provide below:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{figure}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

The figure in PDF format can be downloaded here.
However, you can use any pdf file that contains highlights to see the problem.

Best Answer

If you highlight and annotate inside a PDF figure with tools such as Acrobat, Preview, or Evince, these elements do not become part of the PDF figure – they are stored as PDF annotations.

Basically, annotations are distinct objects that are put on top of the PDF figure, can be edited, moved around and so on by viewers that support this. They also may look differently in every viewer, as the PDF specifications only defines the annotation types and properties, but not how they are to be rendered on screen.

To have annotations become part of the figure, the PDF need to be "flattened", for instance, by printing it (including annotations) into another PDF file. However, this is not supported by many PDF viewers.