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A
aitork67242299
Participant
May 23, 2019
Answered

Can´t copy from an unprotected pdf

  • May 23, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2207 views

I opened today the PDF document and I can´t copy any text from it. I can select pictures and copy them but not the text. It is unprotected and I had been copying text from it two days ago without any problem. When I put the selection tool above the text, it doesn´t recognise it and I run out of ideas.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Karl Heinz Kremer

Without access to the document, it's impossible to say what's going on. It is possible that what looks like text is not actually stored as text in the document (but instead as "drawings" of characters). Can you use the text highlight tool on this text? If that's not possible either, then it's more likely that this is the problem.

What happens when you select File>Save as text? Does the resulting file contain the text that you cannot copy?  

2 replies

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
May 23, 2019

Are you sure you were copying the text from the same file? Also, it's possible that some text is copyable and other isn't, if the latter is a part of a picture.

Karl Heinz Kremer
Community Expert
Karl Heinz KremerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
May 23, 2019

Without access to the document, it's impossible to say what's going on. It is possible that what looks like text is not actually stored as text in the document (but instead as "drawings" of characters). Can you use the text highlight tool on this text? If that's not possible either, then it's more likely that this is the problem.

What happens when you select File>Save as text? Does the resulting file contain the text that you cannot copy?  

A
aitork67242299Author
Participant
May 23, 2019

I think you are right... but I don´t know why. The PDF is an exported document from AutoCAD. All the text was written in there so it should be stored as text.

I tried saving as text and only appears some of the text, not all of it, so probably part of the text is a picture...

Thank you!!

Barb Binder
Community Expert
Barb BinderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 23, 2019

Hi aitork67242299:

Your screen shot shows that you are using Adobe Reader. Do you have Adobe Acrobat? You can run OCR on it to convert it to editable text, and then copy that. We can help with the steps if this is an option.

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
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