Copying out of PDFs

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:00 am

Hey, I'm trying to quote a paragraph off a PDF that has annoyingly locked out the copy paste function. I'll just type the passage out for now but I'd much rather not have to in the future. Anyone know of some simple tricks to get around it?

It is not a scanned PDF btw

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:14 pm

Printscreen, OCR. Or use a reader that doesn't respect the security features.

Funny because I used to develop DRM for PDFs.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:20 pm

What PDF reader do you use? Does it allow C/P on non-locked PDFs?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:14 pm

Usually if the text is 'locked' it's actually stored graphically and the reader doesn't know it is text.

-Crissa

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:12 am

It is recognized as text because it highlights. The problem is the copy paste actions are in grey. I am using adobe.

Is there a better one that ignores such things?

I have tried one or 2 others before (not for this) but they generally seemed inferior.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:51 am

ckafrica wrote:It is recognized as text because it highlights. The problem is the copy paste actions are in grey. I am using adobe.

Is there a better one that ignores such things?

I have tried one or 2 others before (not for this) but they generally seemed inferior.

Did you try Ctrl+C ? It has worked for me even when the option were not selectable from the menu.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:18 am

Leress wrote:
ckafrica wrote:It is recognized as text because it highlights. The problem is the copy paste actions are in grey. I am using adobe.

Is there a better one that ignores such things?

I have tried one or 2 others before (not for this) but they generally seemed inferior.
Did you try Ctrl+C ? It has worked for me even when the option were not selectable from the menu.

I've been having a similar problem at work, and I just tried that. Didn't work.

Here's the file I was trying to c-and-p from if anyone wants to try:

http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/press/ ... laint2.pdf

Amra · Post by **Amra** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:59 pm

No worries - nailed it. What would you like, a .pdf version of it without the copy/paste restriction, a link to the tool to do it, the installer package of the tool to do it, or to just tell me which text you want?

Seriously though, you want THIS for the win, or given that I've done the job already I'm happy to go with the other options 8)

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:51 am

Thanks Amra that's the shit. How dare people try to protect their intelectual property!!!

Gonna save me loads of time finishing my reports in the future

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:37 pm

Personally, I use FoxIt and that usually bypasses that kind of bullshit.

Copy/pasting out of pdfs is something you need to do for requests and review. No one actually has property rights that extend to preventing you from copying short pieces of text out of documents for that purpose.

-Username17

Amra · Post by **Amra** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:30 am

I use Foxit and it wouldn't copy/paste out of that particular document so I went for the straightforward option rather than try to figure out how to duck and weave around the restrictions.

And I agree with Frank or I wouldn't have posted: as far as I know, laws in the majority of countries where any intellectual property legislation even exists allow for fair use. In the UK it's pretty specific about what proportion of the total text of a document of a particular size can be used for what purposes, whilst in other countries it's left much more to the interpretation of "reasonable".

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:27 pm

Amra wrote:I use Foxit and it wouldn't copy/paste out of that particular document so I went for the straightforward option rather than try to figure out how to duck and weave around the restrictions.

Foxit won't copy text, period, unless you pay the $50 to register it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:51 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Amra wrote:I use Foxit and it wouldn't copy/paste out of that particular document so I went for the straightforward option rather than try to figure out how to duck and weave around the restrictions.
Foxit won't copy text, period, unless you pay the $50 to register it.

This is demonstrably false. I never spent $50, or any money to register Foxit Reader, and copying text is as simple as switching to the select text tool, selecting, right clicking, and choosing "copy to clip board."

Now as it happens, the security settings of that pdf do lock out text selection, but that doesn't mean that Fox-it is in general incapable of copying text.

-Username17