When I drag my pointer over a word, it doesn’t highlight it It drags a ghosted image of it.
Sounds like you’ve already highlighted it and are now trying to drag the word somewhere.
Not sure that applies to okular though, for me dragging moves the page.
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Sounds like a worn mouse switch contact to me. 
What happens if you press Esc whilst still holding the mouse button?
… The “ghost image” should disappear, leaving the text highlighted.
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That’s a likely reason for the highlight and drag, but requires a specific set of events to consistently highlight a word.
I would expect it to vary (at least a little) if it’s a worn switch, perhaps the description isn’t complete.
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When I hit ESC, the ghost thing doesn’t happen. So how do I get it to just high light it?
Do you have another mouse to test with?
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There is the option of pointing to one end of the bit you want to copy (to put the text cursor there) and holding SHIFT then tapping the left or right arrow keys to select the text, assuming the mouse is making this difficult.
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Doesn’t work.
You must be very delicate and accurate.
Before you can ‘drag’ you must have pressed the mouse button, you cannot omit this detail from your description, otherwise it makes no sense - do you understand?
So enter some text:
Regular text
Bold text
# Italic text
Ligatures: == === != !== -> => <- <= >= :: && || ++ --
Zero test: 0 O o
This is nice for adjusting fonts and so on… so pasting that in kwrite and/or kate… now what should we do?
If you want to highlight ‘Ligatures’ then you put the cursor to the left side of the ‘L’, then you press the mouse (LMB).
this will put your ‘I’ beam (or whatever you set) cursor at the start of the word, you can use arrows to move it.
Ctrl makes the cursor jump by words. Holding SHIFT means it will add to your selection.
So you can click in the middle of Ligatures, press Ctrl ← to go to the start, and use Ctrl+Shift+→ to select the word.
Alternatively, you can click and pull the arrow to the end to select a word, or line, or whatever.
Alternatively, double-click the word Ligatures.
Three clicks will select the entire line.
Once you have selected some text, then if you put the mouse over it, click and move the mouse, then the text will be dragged.
Conclusion
There are very robust methods of managing text in your editors, such that if you cannot master the mouse - which requires accuracy and dexterity, you can use the keyboard instead.
Then the last 40 years of development in computer operating systems and software has obviously been a complete waste of time.
I suggest you sell the computer and buy a notepad and pencil instead 
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Oh sorry.
Have you tried with a separate user account? If it behaves the same way there, then that would point at a hardware problem.
I have another Linux OS on the sys, I can click, drag & highlight web pages though.
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Garuda thngs work fine, my NTFS drive opens also. It is more updated, but thhatt shouldn’t be the issue.
It drags it like a image? You know what I mean by highlight right?
Is this the same as the problem you described here: Kate, Kwrite & Okular
Or if it is different, what is different?
Sorry, vouldn’t find that to add this to. I will delete this 1.
No need, I’ll merge the threads.
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Yes.
You place your mouse pointer over some text.
The mouse pointer changes to look like the Capital Letter 'I".
You then hold down the Left Mouse Button (assuming you are Right Handed) and drag the mouse pointer over a section of Text.
The section of Text changes to the Selected Text Colour, as you drag the Mouse Pointer.
When you have selected the section of Text you want. You can
Drag that section of Text to a text Editor
An edit box on the Web page or
even on to your desktop.
When you are draging the Text the mouse pointer changes to the gripping hand cursor.
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Vim does it fine, wonder why Kate deosn’t?