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SebastiaoV
SebastiaoV
Known Participant
May 4, 2009
Question

Copy text from a PDF to word. Just get Symbols

  • May 4, 2009
  • 9 replies
  • 469054 views

Hello,

I have a public PDF with no Copying Restrictions. When I try to copy text from the PDF highlighted text to WORD I only get unreadable garbage.
I can select the desired text and copy it into word but when I paste the text it is pasted like symbols and lines.

I tried Special Paste and does not works. It says the font is a Gill Sans something (with numbers and so on), no really a font it seems but when i change it to Arial i still get symbols.

Any help or ideas,

Cheers,
Sebastian

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    9 replies

    D
    Dhaval0D4C
    Participant
    November 21, 2020

    Print the PDF into PDF. then try converting to word. worked for me.

    N
    niksmif
    Participating Frequently
    October 4, 2021

    In Acrobat Pro delete all font information: Edit > Preflight > pdf fixups > Convert fonts to outlines.

    Next, re-recognise all text: Scan and OCR > Recognise text.

    Then export as Plain text.

    You may get the odd scan error.

    D
    Dhaval0D4C
    Participant
    November 21, 2020

    Print the PDF into PDF. then try converting.. it worked for me.

    S
    somebody1
    Participant
    June 14, 2020

    that happens to me tooo i dont get it 😞

    L
    letsTalkAdobe
    Participant
    August 21, 2011

    The CutePDF fix looks like it completely works for me!!!

    Printed document through CutePDF, selecting settings that minimized optimization and requested native True Type fonts  (sorry didn't document exactly.....didn't think it would work right away!) .

    Then did Acrobat OCR, and now I can copy and paste from Acrobat to other programs without garbage here and there.

      B
      Barbara_Humphrey
      Participant
      April 15, 2011

      Here's the solution.  When you open the PDF document in "Preview", do not do any "saves" on it before you have copied the data you want to paste into Word.  Before you do anything, Do a "save as" on the document and keep one fresh copy just in case you forget and do a save on it.  Once you do a "save" on a PDF document, it will convert the text to garbage when pasted into Word.  It works. 

        A
        Altyin
        Participant
        April 5, 2011

        A PDF file does not store enough information to enable you to re-create it as a Word document (that's why it was invented, to prevent people copying files).

        try67
        Community Expert
        try67Community Expert
        Community Expert
        April 5, 2011

        That's hardly why the PDF format was invented...

          T
          techjf25
          Participant
          February 10, 2011

          I had that same issue. What I did was to print the pdf file to CutePDF printer. I was able to copy and paste the text from the new document.

            A
            Anonymous
            February 16, 2011

            Thanks Techjf25....Your solution to print to CutePDF worked perfectly and solved an issue that I encounter quite frequently!  Super easy and quick as can be.

              B
              Bill12
              Inspiring
              May 6, 2009

              One approach is a bit of work, but might meet your need. I saved the file to TIFF (600dpi). I then went through each TIFF to converted it to B&W. I think copied the text to WORD. The result was not perfect, but it was in English and could be clipped. The resolution and the B&W were important to the project completion.

              B
              Bill12
              Inspiring
              May 4, 2009

              You simply should just have to change the font used for the display in WORD. Why not try saving to a DOC file?

              SebastiaoV
              SebastiaoVAuthor
              Known Participant
              May 4, 2009

              Thanks for the idea Bill, but it does not work. Even if i change the font in Word it will be still strange symbols. By the way if i save the PDF as a Word file I just get a lot of pages full of symbols, as you can see in the attach.

              Is there any way to replace the fonts of the original PDF by changing it by a different one?

              Cheers,
              S

              B
              Bill12
              Inspiring
              May 5, 2009

              Sometimes you can change the font, as long as the fonts are compatible. Check the document properties to see if the fonts are embedded (I guess they are) and if you have those fonts on your system. If you do not have the fonts, then you can't copy them.

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