Can not copy text from epub in Adobe Digital Editions and paste in e.g. Word

[ITfee]

There are several threads in this support forum asking all likely the same question, how to copy text passages from an epub opened in Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to another application or text editor like Word, Notepad, Open Office ...

Copying from adobe digital editions

Re: Copying text to my term papers. Ctrl+C doesn't work. Help!!

Problems with Copy/Paste This question is Not Answered.  no longer copy text and paste into another ...

how do I copy text from an epub book?

Digitl Edition EBook copy text option not available

... but remain unanswered. That's a little odd, due to the fact that it seems to be an issue for a bunch of people.

Is it just impossible or a bug in ADE?

I use latest version ADE 4.5.1 on Windows 7. The tested epubs have no DRM. And they are not blocked by Windows.

What I found out so far, if I open the same epub in an older version (ADE 3.0) I can copy and paste text without any problems. But if I open it in ADE 4.5.1 I can only copy once and then the option is greyed out in the context menu (also ctrl + c doesn't work). So for every copy paste I need to reopen the ebook. So it is useless for scientific work, where you need to cite a lot from different books.

Is there a workaround or will there be a patch from Adobe? Or can someone suggest a similar eReader application for desktop users?

[nataliec14906168]

So true, this is SUPER frustrating. I will NEVER buy this online text nonsense again.

[Samuel5C12]

Update: have found you can get around it by uninstalling whichever book you're using then redownloading it. Irritating, but only takes a minute!

[Yousif345760371jbg]

Is this genuine ?

[julienc56909707]

Adobe Digital Edition is so baaaad.

It's a shame the ebook I needed for work was only available on this dumb.

I can not copy and paste !!!!!!

I suppose this is not resolved yet.

I want to vomit.

[zannzeta]

Still not resolved after 3 years?? What is Adobe up to??!

[Guest]

Still, I have the same problem in 2020. 

[Alice5EB6]

It's 2021.............AND THE SAME PROBLEM

Here we go again

[Mugan]

Really !! How still they can not solve that problem. 

[chrisd30279893]

Yup, still broke.

[M K]

This is appaling software. Like 1990. I have version 4.5.11.187303. I need to copy text. That is fundamental to do the work. This software is about security only. It is not for buyers or users. The quality of the software is just so poor. A very fine book becomes a rip-off due to the required reader. Unless the copy text issue is resolved, this the first and last product for this software that I will buy.

Due to the lockdown I can not get a paper version. I bought a book without looking at the reader required.  

You want to write something that would make them fix this,but if Adobe obviously just don't care ... boycott and avoid this company as much as possible I suppose. 

[AJIT_M]

Hi All,

Apologies for the inconvenience caused to you.

I would like to inform you that we can see the issue at our end with the copy function, where "copy" option is randomly available in the eBook (Where the copy option is already enabled/allowed by the Seller), And in order to copy again, you may have to re-open the eBook sometimes.

We have already logged the internal bug for the same for further investigation and Product team is already looking into it. 

We will keep you all posted once we have any further update.

Regards,

Ajit

[Adrianna5E76]

It has been a year, and this copy and paste issue is unresolved. Are there any updates on what the issue is and how to solve it? I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program. I have forced quit and reopened. I know the copy and paste feature works on this eBook. What is the update??

[kristina.sooy]

Like @Adrianna5E76 I'm also requesting an update. Adobe logged this issue/bug 5 YEARS AGO! Sorry to sound impatient or rude, but I NEED to be able to copy and paste as this is for a college course. PLEASE HELP, Adobe ASAP!!!! Thank you.

[Ioannis27168130awr5]

It is beyond my understanding how such a seemingly small issue, apparently takes longer than 6 years to get resolved. As the others did, I'm adding my comment to underline the fact that it still doesn't work in November 2022. Please, either fix it or just be honest and tell us that it won't happen so we can find permanent alternatives to your service.

[Prasanna92]

I was having the same issue , i added it to library and now it works!?

[Matt Cooper]

I've just come across this issue (or a similar one, ADE was crashing when i tried to copy a bit of text so that i could search for it for citing purposes) 

I found a solution on another thread, run ADE as administrator on a windows machine and it no longer crashes!

[kristina.sooy]

Is there a workaround for Mac users, though?

[Frida24424788ay4a]

It seems to work for me too!

[Tainah5DC3]

Inacreditável. 2020 e ainda não foi arrumado.

O que achei mais estranho é que eu estava conseguindo fazer o copia e cola de um livro (uso o recurso para fazer resumos de estudo) e de repende parou de funcionar. Isso prova que o problema não está relacionado com a permissão, parece um bug mesmo. 

[defaultyzlx7gbxwld8]

STILL NOT WORKING! unbelievable considering they said they were on it this time last year

[defaultuc08512aorxo]

Doing my masters degree. Got tons of books I cannot copy from. October 2021. What the... adobe?

[Kristýna218642132vua]

same here. doing reading and translating for my uni and cant copy paste. im really PISSED OFF. get this fixed ALREADY

[Nicole252720671u3o]

Adobe.. why is this still an issue? How hard is it to enable the copy function on an e-reader??? 

[John Smith Smith]

The software appears abandoned but if possible pls release a quick fix, even imported books from my pc can't copy.

[rémid18650607]

For me, it will be the first and last time I'm using this ADE, designers completely forgot to think about the user. Impossible to copy indeed