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Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text?

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:59 pm
by adoptapet
I've downloaded every PDF-related utility or program that I could find in the Synaptic Package Manager reservoir. And, still, I haven't found any way to open a PDF in a way which allows me to highlight the text, copy it as text (not an image) so that I can paste it into another document. Does anyone have any solution :?:

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:14 pm
by Orbmiser
I use Okular which is default pdf app for KDE which is my Default DE.

Then Tools>Text Selection Tool to be able to copy text from Pdf's.
Are you checking for that feature in the Pdf programs you tried?
As some are just Pdf readers other's like mine more feature rich.
But you have to check the specs whether it supports that feature or not.
.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:12 pm
by robert-e
If not installed, install Atril (also known as Evince or Document Viewer). Set it as default. The only downside is that seclected text is "backed out" instead of highlighted. I find the same problem in Abiword. (BTW, Abiword will also read and select/copy text, it is much bigger/slower program.)

Atril (Mint) and Evince (Gnome2) both work. OTOH, neither will read some newer Adobe produced pdf files, but rather asks for a password. This does not happen with the same file using a newish Adobe Reader.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Bob

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:25 pm
by DrHu
pdfedit is probably the best pdf editor application you could use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDFedit
http://pdfedit.cz/en/index.html

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:52 pm
by adoptapet
Orbmiser wrote:I use Okular which is default pdf app for KDE which is my Default DE.

Then Tools>Text Selection Tool to be able to copy text from Pdf's.
Are you checking for that feature in the Pdf programs you tried?
As some are just Pdf readers other's like mine more feature rich.
But you have to check the specs whether it supports that feature or not.
.
Thanks very much for your suggestion. I did download and install Okular through Synaptic Package Manager. But it does not show up anywhere (that I can find) in my program list, not in Accessories, Office, or Graphics. Maybe the desktop that I'm using, XFCE Mint Linux Mate 13, is not compatible; my computer is quite old and has an 'anemic' CPU.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:52 pm
by adoptapet
Orbmiser wrote:I use Okular which is default pdf app for KDE which is my Default DE.

Then Tools>Text Selection Tool to be able to copy text from Pdf's.
Are you checking for that feature in the Pdf programs you tried?
As some are just Pdf readers other's like mine more feature rich.
But you have to check the specs whether it supports that feature or not.
.
Thanks very much for your suggestion. I did download and install Okular through Synaptic Package Manager. But it does not show up anywhere (that I can find) in my program list, not in Accessories, Office, or Graphics. Maybe the desktop that I'm using, XFCE Mint Linux Mate 13, is not compatible; my computer is quite old and has an 'anemic' CPU.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:54 pm
by adoptapet
Orbmiser wrote:I use Okular which is default pdf app for KDE which is my Default DE.

Then Tools>Text Selection Tool to be able to copy text from Pdf's.
Are you checking for that feature in the Pdf programs you tried?
As some are just Pdf readers other's like mine more feature rich.
But you have to check the specs whether it supports that feature or not.
.
Thanks very much for your suggestion. I did download and install Okular through Synaptic Package Manager. But it does not show up anywhere (that I can find) in my program list, not in Accessories, Office, or Graphics. Maybe the desktop that I'm using, XFCE Mint Linux Mate 13, is not compatible; my computer is quite old and has an 'anemic' CPU.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:58 pm
by adoptapet
robert-e wrote:If not installed, install Atril (also known as Evince or Document Viewer). Set it as default. The only downside is that seclected text is "backed out" instead of highlighted. I find the same problem in Abiword. (BTW, Abiword will also read and select/copy text, it is much bigger/slower program.)

Atril (Mint) and Evince (Gnome2) both work. OTOH, neither will read some newer Adobe produced pdf files, but rather asks for a password. This does not happen with the same file using a newish Adobe Reader.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Bob
Thanks! Yes, I did install (with the Synaptic Package Manager) Atril. But it did not show up in the program list. I'm using XFCE Linux Mint 13 Mate 32 bit; as I understand, my processor is so old that I can't upgrade any more until I get a newer system.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:02 pm
by adoptapet
DrHu wrote:pdfedit is probably the best pdf editor application you could use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDFedit
http://pdfedit.cz/en/index.html
Thank you! I've not been able to figure out PDFEdit. I try to highlight with the text select option, but am not successful. I'm using XFCE Linux Mint 13 Mate 32 bit.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 5:18 am
by SaintsRaw
you cant copy and paste text from pdf, thats kind of the point ^^
what i usually do is convert the pdf to text ( http://pdftoword.pro/ ) and then take what i need form the text doc
hope this helps^^

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:00 am
by Orbmiser
SaintsRaw wrote:you cant copy and paste text from pdf, thats kind of the point ^^
what i usually do is convert the pdf to text ( http://pdftoword.pro/ ) and then take what i need form the text doc
hope this helps^^
That isn't true for many PDF Viewer with tools like full Adobe vs. Adobe reader.
Or Okular in KDE does allow selection of text in pdf's.
Okular Text Selection.jpeg
Ctrl +4 changes to Text mode and allows me to highlight and copy any amount of text I want from a pdf.
.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 1:39 pm
by tomtiger
Hi,

if a pdf file does not contain text but only graphics (for example a scanned text document) then you cannot extract the text. You need an OCR application for that. If a pdf file was created by an application (eg pdf printer) then you can extract the text.

This is a pdf file that contains text: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/LokalisationUndOrtung.pdf you should be able to extract it.

This is a pdf with Text that has been scanned http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dlmain/ ... E00032.pdf you can only extract the picture.

HTH Tom

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 1:56 pm
by Flemur
You can hi-light and copy text with the firefox pdf viewer.

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 2:29 pm
by daveinuk
You can open pdf's with libre office 'draw' (also with writer)- click on a line of text and then click inside it to selct the text required or the entire line of text, limitations seem to be that you can only do a line at a time, unless someone else knows how to select more? you can drag the selection borders across the whole page, but one line seems to be its limit. This does text or graphics or a combined document.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tr-doj ... fice-draw/

HTH

Re: Select, Copy, and Paste Text from a PDF as Editable Text

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 8:39 am
by Tejas_0
adoptapet wrote:I did download and install Okular through Synaptic Package Manager. But it does not show up anywhere (that I can find) in my program list, not in Accessories, Office, or Graphics.
That happens quite a lot. Did you try in terminal?

Code: Select all

whereis okular
If it is in one of the bin files you can run it with Alt+F2: okular

Had a similar problem yesterday when installed aegisub. whereis informed me it was in /usr/share, which then meant the program proper was really missing AFAIK.