Guys, how do I cut and paste text from a pdf into WORD or some other usable text format?....

[zonkers]

I was copying and pasting into a WORD doc. But the word file started acting all weird. There has got to be a simple way to do this right?

[blogslut]

1. You might try

...to copy/paste from Adobe into Notepad, then copy/paste from Notepad into Word.

[dubeskin]

2. To my knowledge you can't

PDF's are special. You are going to have to type it up, sorry. I think :) Ask someone with more computer experience.

[billyskank]

3. With a reasonably recent version of Adobe Acrobat reader, you can cut & paste

You need to select copying mode off the menu somewhere. It's not hard to find. Once you have done that you can select the text and Ctrl-C it as usual.

[dubeskin]

4. Figures

The last time I opened a PDF was a while ago. And at that the last time I tried to copy from it was even longer.

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. You are correct, billyskank!

As long as it's understood that to C&P the menu choices from the .pdf task bar are used. There is usually an arrow (cursor arrow) icon in the .pdf task bar. By selecting that, the user can then highlight and then use the .pdf edit menu/select copy, and then move it to any page where the selection can be pasted.

If there's no arrow icon, the .pdf task bar Edit/Select All/Copy and then move to the page where the user wants it placed. Downside is when the .pdf is many pages.... x(

[crispini]

5. Did you get it to work?

The thing that determined whether or not you can cut and paste from a PDF is whether or not the original document was OCR'ed (optical character recognition) when it was scanned. If the person who created the PDF chose this option, then you should just be able to highlight it and cut and paste, fine. The computer "knows" that they are words. If they didn't, then you are SOL, and you'll have to retype it, 'cause the computer "thinks" it's a picture. So to speak.

Good luck.

[zonkers]

6. Nah, not workin. Its getting cut and pasted as an image. But thanks for the tips, everyone. I

checked out a few pdf to MSWord/plain text programs but they all seem a bit weird, dont really work and want to charge me 50 dollars for full function usage. I know there must be a solution to this problem. Another problem I think I may be having is the docs I am DLing are huge and eating up my ram.

[crispini]

7. Google OCR on PDF and you'll find a few more.

However, I expect they're mostly going to charge you. :shrug:

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. There is usually a little "T" character in one of the top toolbars.

Select it, then grab the text you want. Let me add that I am usually used to working with the Creator version. I'm pretty sure Reader has this, but maybe not.

[OrwellwasRight]

9. If you can get it to select just a few words,

then you can copy and paste them. For best results, use Paste Special instead of command/control+V; then choose to paste as unformatted text.

If you can't select just a few words, as the person sdaid above, the comuter thinks it is a picture and there is nothing you can do (aside from printing it, scanning it in yourself using OCR, and creating a new PDF).

[mtnsnake]

10. Not sure if this is what you mean, but up on the toolbar of the pdf page, just select

the button that says "T Select Text" and then you should be able to select what you want and paste it to your notepad, no?