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Kevin29469326ycis
Participant
April 18, 2023
Question

Copying and Pasting the Exact Same Text From One pdf to Another pdf

  • April 18, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 3213 views

How can I update text across multiple documents with consistent spacing, font, size, and bolded text? I've tried copying and pasting from another PDF or Word document, but it only pastes the words without formatting. Is there a way to copy the text while preserving the exact same font, size, bolding, etc., as my coworkers have done?

    2 replies

    Charlie Walsh
    Charlie Walsh
    Participant
    April 12, 2024

    I have been trying desparately for days to copy text from one PDF and paste to another.  Does anyone knwo how to do this?  Thanks.

    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    gary_scCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 12, 2024

    Need more information, @Charlie Walsh.

     

    What version and flavor of Acrobat are you using? Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Standard, or Acrobat Pro? (And what release number?)

    For the record, what is your OS (and what release)?

     

    What is the nature of the text you are trying to copy? While that probably sounds stupid or strange, it does have a lot to do with any potential success. If you look at the structure of any PDF, you'll see blocks of text, as opposed to continuous text in a word processing or page layout application. If, for example, you're trying to copy one block and insert it in between two other blocks, that cannot be done. If the action of pasting will force text off the page onto the next page, that also cannot be done because each page of a PDF is a separate entity. 

     

    Unless you have the original documents to copy and paste from, your best bet is to convert both PDFs into a Word document, do all of your copying, pasting, and formatting there, and then convert that Word document back into a PDF.

    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    gary_scCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 18, 2023

    Acrobat was never intended to be a word editor, page layout program, or anything in between. It is pretty amazing that it can do as much editing as it can. 

     

    Your BEST bet is to go back to the original documents, do what you need to do with them, and then re-create the PDF from the original documents with the changes you want. After all, if you had actually printed these documents, as opposed to doing a digital printing, what other option would you have?

     

    If you do not have access to the original documents, you might consider saving the PDFs to a Word document, making the changes you want, and then redoing the PDFs. Yeah, that's a lot of work, but without access to the real originals, it's a lot of work, whatever approach you choose.

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