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Adobe Reader 9.0 Direct Copy PDF Files and Paste To Text Files

by bobsstuff
5 replies
I noticed a new look to Adode Reader. I purchase Acrobat 7.0 a
while back and hadn't upgraded since. My computer crashed so I
had to upgrade my reader.

Today I opened an old Adobe PDF file and for some reason tried
to copy and paste directly from the document. IT WORKED!

Next I did a SELECT ALL and copied and pasted the entire PDF
document into notepad. YIKES!

I then copied a PDF file into WORD and it kept all of the
formatting but not the colored text. Fonts, paragraphs
everything copied and pasted directly from PDF to Word .doc file.

Does this mean PDF file protection is a thing of the past?
I need to find a locked PDF file and see what happens to it.
#adobe #copy #direct #files #paste #pdf #reader #text
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Bob,

    That's always been true of unlocked PDFs, as far as I can recall. If it's true of locked PDFs, Adobe's going to hear some serious flack over it. But I doubt that's the case.


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  • Profile picture of the author bobsstuff
    Paul, I can't test it now, no old reader, but I thought all PDF files were actually image files that needed to be converted in order to paste text into another file.
    I know I used to try to copy text from PDF files and never could. Maybe all the files I tired were locked. ???
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    Bob Hale
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    • Profile picture of the author tj
      Originally Posted by bobsstuff View Post

      Paul, I can't test it now, no old reader, but I thought all PDF files were actually image files that needed to be converted in order to paste text into another file.
      I know I used to try to copy text from PDF files and never could. Maybe all the files I tired were locked. ???
      Bob, that old files were maybe OCR'd by an Adobe Acrobat Version. That can be done even you have images of books only. The text file is after that added as a layer to the image only file. In this way you can copy the text from the file. If it is a protected file even then depending on the kind of protection you can copy and paste, but you can cannot change / edit the file itself.

      Timo
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Bob,
      Paul, I can't test it now, no old reader, but I thought all PDF files were actually image files that needed to be converted in order to paste text into another file.
      Nope. PDF is basically a markup language, at heart. A very good one, but still a markup language. The text and images are separate, and have to be decrypted to be displayed.

      Faxes are often converted to TIFFs, which work the way you describe, even when they're multi-page documents. That takes feeding to an OCR product to extract the text.


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  • Profile picture of the author tj
    If the files were copyprotected then you would not be able to copy text with Acrobat Reader. If you check the properties of your pdf file then you can see what kind of protection the pdf file uses (basically what is allowed and what not.)

    Timo
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