Copy/select ignoring empty cells

[matthew_5033]

Hi Everyone,

We have an application that produces PDF reports of data, which are essentially just basic excel spreadsheets with a header section, then a table with column headers & ~10 columns. Our finance team receives these reports, and then copies each column to another external location as part of their workflow. The problem is, some of the individual cells in the table are blank/no value, and when they copy (using a mouse to manually select the data in whole columns at a time), then paste, these cells are ignored. So in a very basic example, a 2x3 Grid, with X's denoting populated cells:

X, X

X,

X, X

Copying the data from column 2 top down and pasting into excel should put an X in row 1, and 3, leaving row 2 blank. The issue is that the blank cell is being skipped and the data from row 3 windws up in row 2, which obviously throws off the destination sheet. Hence my question, is there a way to get Adobe to select the "empty" cells so the pasting function is a true representation of the source PDF?

The current workaround is to use an alternate PDF reader application, which clearly includes placeholder "markers" for each empty cell when selecting whole comumns, and results in accurate pasting. Would be great to have this working in Adobe...

[jane-e]

@matthew_5033 

Which application are the cells being pasted to?

Are using Acrobat Pro or the free Acrobat Reader?

Have you considered exporting to Excel first and copying from Excel?

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/exporting-pdfs-file-formats.html

https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/pdf-to-excel

Jane

[JR Boulay]

Try this: select the whole sheet in the PDF using the Selection tool, then right-click: "Copy with formatting" and paste in Excel.