The "copy" option is grayed out and I can't copy and paste. [2016]

[notguilty62]

I have Adobe Digital Editions and haven't used it for a while but when I went to copy and past something it wouldn't work.  This seriously impacts the usefulness of the product.  I'm sure there's an easy solution but don't know what it is. 

[cselhost · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Based on the information given, I suspect that you have purchased a book where the bookstore has disabled the ability to copy and paste as a security/DRM measure. Unfortunately, there isn't much that you can do if this is the case. You can go to the library view in ADE and then right click on the book and select "Get Info." If copying is allow or disallowed it will say it there.

[goa72676041]

It#s very interresting. I could copy from the same book, before i changed the computer. The same programm, the same book...and it was possible to copy sentences. Now, no chance.

[goa72676041]

And that happens to all my books

[Phoebe31279295xp4c]

This is a super annoying bug of ADE's. I've figured out a sort-of work-around, even though it's clunky and not ideal:

1.  Highlight the text (copy is greyed out)
2.  Press 'Look Up...' 
3.  Pop up window says 'no results found' but gives the option to do a google search instead. Press the google search option
4.  Then just copy it from the google search bar that it's opened up in a seperate window 

[Jay365624695rg6]

Disclaimer: My assumption here is that your purpose is to pull notes from a book for a class, etc. where you have properly been given access to the materials. Technical subjects simply require more notes/excerpts.

You can also try downloading a new copy of the book/chapter.  Likely it will still show as the same lease as from the last DL. First remove all listings of the item from ADE and delete all previous DL iterations (1), etc. - then DL again and it may get you a bit more mileage for taking necessary notes.

Lastly you can print to PDF - not from ADE - it will give an error about "Virtual printing is not allowed" unless you want to actually physically print and then scan it back in. Seems excessive.  
Print the needed chapter or pages (probably not the whole book and there is a page print limitation anyway) to PDF from your online bookstore. Then copy from there.

[Mickey30040361570u]

I gave up trying to copy from ADE - which won't let me do it even if I go to the library, right click on the book, click on Item info, and it says copying is permitted.

I just open the ebook in Caibre e-Book Viewer and copy it from there.  The Viewer, though, doesn't show page numbers or have a slide bar like ADE so I have to press the right arrow on the keyboard until I get to the page I want to copy.

[defaultgvg6x4ag51ja]

One workaround on a MAC is to take a screen shot of the page you are reading then MAC allows for selection of text to copy to your document of choice. Not ideal but less clunky than the lookup steps.