How do you copy text from a PDF document?

[ThomWV]

I believe there is a keystroke sequence you can use to copy text from a PDF document, if that's true can someone tell me how? I'd like to copy one of the footnotes from the CIA IG Report into a post and its a good bit longer than I'd like to type.

[YOY]

1. Do you have Adobe Writer? Or just Reader?

n/t

[redqueen]

2. There should be a button at the top...

I think it looks like a cursor. Click that, and you should be able to highlight and copy text.

Not positive, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

[WeDidIt]

3. Government documents in PDF are usually scans

And are not OCRed.

This means that what you see exists as a picture, not text.

I'm not sure about the document in quesiton as I've not seen it.

[ThomWV]

4. I was afraid of that

Basically photographs for my purpose - or lack thereof.

[enlightenment]

7. You should still be able to copy it, perhaps as an image.

Do you have link?

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. try opening iwth a picture editor, GIMP is free

and selecting it.

At times that works

And worst comes to works I think the MAC PDF reader could possibly do it, depends in the encryption level. Some, the files I create for sale, have copy and paste disabled.

[Oregone]

5. Yeah, but you could try and print it and rescan with OCR

Its never perfect doing this but it could save some time.

Is there a way to apply character recognition to an image without printing it first?

[Aviation Pro]

6. Where's the download to the CIA report....

...I can give you an answer if you point me in that direction.

[sabra]

8. here

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/cia_oig_report.pdf?hpid=topnews

[ThomWV]

9. Here's a link - I'm looking at footnote 26, begins at the bottom of page 21

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/cia_report.pdf

[LiberalFighter]

11. It is a scan and very poor resolution. Would be difficult to use OCR to convert.

I take it back. I think the resolution is enough for a possible OCR conversion.

[Aviation Pro]

12. Agree with LiberalFighter (but converted it anyway).....

...the entire document is a .jpg and tough to convert to an editable format. Fortunately, I have a way of doing it so here it is:

(U//FOUO) The SERE training program falls under the DoD Joint Personnel Recovery
Agency (JPRA). JPRA is responsible for missions to include the training for SERE and Prisoner of
War and Missing In Action operational affairs induding repatriation. SERE Training is offered
by the U,S. Army, Navy, and Air Farce to its personnel, particularly air crews and special
operations forces who are of greatest risk of being captured during military operations. SERE
students are taught bow to survive in various terrain, evade and endure captivity, resist
interrogations, and conduct themselves to prevent harm to themselves and fellow prisoners of
war.

Also pretty fortunate that I'm very familiar with SERE.

[prairierose]

10. Look at the menu bar in your Adobe reader...

there should be an icon that looks a bit like a capital I. Click on that and then highlight the text you want to copy, then, right click and copy. Then paste where you want it.

[ddeclue]

13. Generally speaking you can't - that's why people put stuff into PDF's in the first place.

[Igel]

16. I don't think that's true.

I PDF things so people can't mess with the contents.

I've been able to cut-and-paste from PDFs, export images for additional processing, and use native OCR capabilities (Acrobat 8, perhaps, has such?) to render images into text that can be pasted or exported.

I think it's possible to prevent those function, but then there's the obvious difference between "possible function" and "primary function."

[Gidney N Cloyd]

14. Here's an online pdf to text converter...

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html

[Angleae]

15. Ctrl + A then Ctrl + C

Provided it is actually text and not a picture and the person who wrote it didn't make it read-only. You can then paste it (Ctrl + V) into any text editor or word processor. (Note: This is for windows, I have no idea if it's the same or different for another OS). Alternatively instead of Ctrl + A you can just select the text with your mouse.