If you want to copy text from a PDF file to add to a Word certificate, paste a formula onto an Excel spreadsheet, or insert into PowerPoint slides for a presentation, it can be as piece of cake as using the Re-create and Paste part.

All the same, that may non necessarily piece of work for all PDF files owing to security and other permissions, merely there are other ways you can fulfill the aforementioned task.

How to Copy Text From a PDF

Before y'all can copy text from PDF to another application, you demand to ostend that information technology doesn't take security settings that disallow copying, otherwise you won't be able to copy anything.  This may be indicated by a grayed out or dimmed copy feature in Reader.

If the PDF you received is protected by a countersign, use the designated password combination to open up it, and then check the security settings to confirm that content copying is allowed.

  • To do this, right-click the certificate and select Certificate Backdrop.
  • Click the Security tab and look at the Document Restrictions Summary to see if content copying is allowed or not.

Note: A PDF with content restrictions usually has the word "Secured" next to the file name at the summit.

  • Open the PDF in any reader and and then re-create the text y'all want using whatsoever of the methods below.

There are several ways of copying text from a PDF file that nosotros'll cover in this guide.

Re-create & Paste Function

This is the de-facto method of copying text from about documents or files, non just PDFs. You can utilize the CTRL+C keyboard shortcut to copy the text you want and and so utilise CTRL+V to paste information technology onto the other document.

If you lot're using a Mac, printing Command-C to copy the text and Command-V to paste the contents of the Clipboard into the electric current certificate or app.

Alternatively, you lot can utilise your mouse or touchpad'due south right-click button and click Select tool.

Select the text you desire to copy on the PDF document by dragging your mouse to highlight the portion you'd like to copy, right click on the selected text, and select Copy.

Y'all can also go to the bill of fare tab, and click Edit>Copy. Once it'southward copied, go to the certificate onto which you lot'd like to paste the copied text, right click on the infinite y'all'd similar to place it, and select Paste, or click Edit>Paste.

Snapshot Or Screenshot Tool

The Snapshot tool in your PDF reader helps you select the text y'all want as a screenshot or graphic, so paste information technology onto another document without affecting the formatting. If you choose this method, you'll get exactly the portion of text you want, only information technology won't be editable.

To practise this, open the PDF document, click Edit > Accept a snapshot.

Alternatively, select the PDF window's championship bar and press Alt+PrtScn on your keyboard to capture the screen, then crop based on the portion you want.

If you're using a Mac, press Command+Shift+4 and utilize the cursor on the screen to drag and select the text y'all'd similar to capture.

Online PDF Reader

You can copy text from a PDF certificate in your browser or online reader.

To do this, open up the PDF in your browser by correct clicking on the file and selecting Open With > (choose browser) or elevate it to an open window on your browser.

Select the text you desire. Press CTRL+C to copy the text and paste it on some other certificate using CTRL+V. Y'all tin also right-click your mouse or touchpad and select Copy, then right-click once more on the other document and select Paste.

PDF Extraction Software

A third-party PDF extraction tool tin besides help you extract text for use in a unlike application such as Discussion, PowerPoint presentation or desktop publishing software.

You tin can use a tool like ExtractPDF, upload your PDF and click Start. The tool will excerpt images, text or even fonts if you lot want, afterward which y'all can copy what you want from the extracted content and paste it onto another application.

In that location are many third-party extraction tools for PDF files that convert them to HTML, while preserving the layout of the page. They as well excerpt and convert the content in the PDF document to vector graphics formats yous tin use in other applications.

PDF Converter

A PDF converter allows you lot to convert a PDF document into an editable document, later on which you tin can copy your text and utilise it in another application.

One of the pop PDF converters is SmallPDF, considering it's an online tool and then it doesn't require whatever installation, and information technology's easy to use. To use it, open SmallPDF on your browser, select the output format, for example PDF to Word.

Click Choose file to upload the PDF you want to convert.

Click Download to relieve the converted file on your device. Next, open the converted Word document, and re-create the text you want.

OCR Tool

An Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool lets you lot catechumen your PDF file to an editable Word document, copy text from PDF files and scanned images to editable text formats.

It'south particularly helpful if you received a scanned certificate in PDF format as it turns such files into editable PDFs instantly, with custom fonts and editable text that expect just like those in the original document.

Adobe Acrobat works as a text converter with OCR as information technology extracts text automatically from scanned images or paper documents, and converts them into PDFs.

The best part is your PDF will lucifer the original printout cheers to the automatic custom font generation, and you can utilise it with other Office applications by cutting and pasting or exporting to MS-Part. It also allows you lot to preserve the document'south verbal look and feel, and restrict content editing.

Note: To utilize these steps, you demand Adobe Acrobat, not Adobe Reader, as the latter is only for viewing PDFs and doesn't take the OCR tool.

To utilise the native OCR tool in Adobe Acrobat, open the PDF containing the scanned text or image in Acrobat for PC or Mac and click Edit PDF.

Acrobat will automatically employ OCR to the PDF and convert it into a fully editable copy. Select the text yous want to copy, and click Edit>Copy, so paste it onto another application.

Y'all can click File > Salvage As to salvage the editable document for use later on.

Alternatively, open up the scanned document or epitome you want to use the OCR reader with, click Tools at the summit right side of the toolbar and select Recognize Text > In This File.

You'll encounter a popup showing your electric current General Settings such as OCR language, PDF output style and resolution. Click OK to become the text recognized.

If you want to alter the settings, click Edit, and and then click OK once you're washed.

Once the text is recognized from the scanned page, you lot tin select and copy the text you want with detected formatting, though it's not every bit accurate as the text recognition.

If all you have is Adobe Reader, and you don't want to get a copy of Acrobat, there are gratis OCR tools like OneNote's OCR for PC, which is free to use, or Tesseract OCR library for Mac.

Annotation: If y'all have Adobe Acrobat, you lot can OCR multiple documents at once. Just open up any document in Acrobat, click Recognize Text in the Tools sidebar and select In Multiple Files. Drag the PDF files you want to OCR  and Acrobat volition recognize the text for y'all.

Do you take any other tricks you use to copy text from a PDF file? Tell us about it in a comment below.