copying PDF files

Katykat

Can anyone tell me how to do this? I am starting a project and I need to copy passages from quite a few PDF files that i read with Adobe reader which prevents me from copying and pasting anything. It would take me ages to type the passages into my project, so is there any way I can copy and paste?

kwikbreaks

If you download and install the Foxit PDF reader - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ and look at the view menu there is a view as text option. That should allow you to use copy and paste (it does on a couple I've just looked at but I guess some documents may be password protected which may scupper that approach).

It could be that the same option is present in your current reader but you didn't see it.

====

I just found Acrobat 7 on a PC and Tools/Basic/Select allows you to copy to clipboard.
Actually the same option is there in Foxit too - Tools/Select Text

tronator

Katykat wrote: »

Can anyone tell me how to do this? I am starting a project and I need to copy passages from quite a few PDF files that i read with Adobe reader which prevents me from copying and pasting anything. It would take me ages to type the passages into my project, so is there any way I can copy and paste?

Is the PDF protected? Then the originator doesn't want you to copy and paste it and you have to live with it.

If not, did you try Tools -> Select & Zoom -> Select Tool and then marking the text and copying and pasting it? If this still doesn't work then the PDF might be created as a picture. Then you will need a OCR software to convert it into text.

marleyboy

you could try converting the pdf via http://www.pdftoword.com/

Katykat

Thanks, the Tools-Select option works great. So does the PDF to Word Convertor. Brilliant