ADOBE ACROBAT 4.0 - Possible to Cut and Paste???

[dpk777]

Is there any way to cut and paste text from Adobe Acrobat 4.0 onto a more accessible format i.e. Word/Excel???

 

[rw120555]

I've done exactly that for this response -- I've cut and pasted the following from pp. 295-296 of Acrohelp.pdf. (In Acrobat, click on Help and then Acrobat Guide.) The key thing is to use the Text select tool. There are additional details for specific types of copying (e.g. Graphics, Tables) after the section I have pasted, so read the guide if you need more than what is described below. Good luck. RW

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Copying PDF text and graphics to other applications

Acrobat allows you to copy text and graphics from a PDF document and paste
them into a file in another application. You can also paste text from a PDF
document into an annotation or bookmark name. Acrobat does not support
copying non-PDF file types (such as Photoshop or Illustrator) directly into PDF
files. You must first convert the non-PDF document to PDF.

While in a PDF document, you select the text or graphic and copy it onto the
clipboard. Once the text or graphic is on the clipboard, you can launch the
other application and paste the text or graphic into a file. If the other appli-cation
supports Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), you can use OLE
commands to paste text into an OLE compound document. For more infor-mation,
see Incorporating PDF documents in documents with OLE support.

Note: If a font copied from a PDF document is not available on the system
displaying the copied text, a default font is substituted.

To select text and copy it to the clipboard:

1 Select the text select tool , and do one of the following:

To select a line of text, select the first letter of the sentence or phrase and
drag to the last letter.

To select multiple columns of text (horizontally), hold down Ctrl (Windows)
or Option (Mac OS) as you drag across the width of the document.

To select a column of text (vertically), hold down Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or
Option+Command (Mac OS) as you drag the length of the document.

To select all the text on the page, choose Edit > Select All. In Single Page
mode, all the text on the current page is selected. In Continuous or Continuous
- Facing mode, most of the text in the document is selected. When you release
the mouse button, the selected text is highlighted. To deselect the text and
start over, click anywhere outside the selected text.

The Select All command will not select all the text in the document. A
workaround for this (Windows) is to use the Edit > Copy File To Clipboard
command.

2 Choose Edit > Copy to copy the selected text to the Clipboard.

3 To view the text, choose Window > Show Clipboard.

In Windows 95, the Clipboard Viewer is not installed by default, and you cannot
use the Show Clipboard command until it is installed. To install the Clipboard
Viewer, choose Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and
then click the Windows Setup tab. Double-click Accessories, check Clipboard
Viewer, and click OK.

 

[hirschma]

The correct answer for this question is: only if the creator of the document allows it.

Acrobat 4.0 (and possibly the previous version) has security bits that can be set that disallow copy and pasting *IF* you're using a compliant product. There are readers in the Unix world that do not comply, allowing you to extract text from any PDF. If you're using Adobe's reader, and if the creator of the document set these bits, well, you're SOL.

jonathan

 

[Mapidus]

You might also want to try ghostscript conversion or use the TOM conversion site.