How to copy and paste a pdf file

Some secured documents have restrictions that prevent you from printing, editing, or copying content. If a document has restricted features, any tools and menu items related to those features are dimmed in Reader. If you have trouble opening a PDF, or if you are restricted from using certain features, contact the author of the PDF. Open the PDF document in Reader. Right-click the document, and choose Document Properties. Click the Security tab, and review the Document Restrictions Summary.

Right-click the document, and choose Select Tool from the pop-up menu. Drag to select text, or click to select an image. How to copy and paste from PDF? If the PDF document is a scanned file, then the content is actually an image instead of text that can be copied.

If the PDF document is secured with certain restrictions, it will also be difficult to copy content. Several potential reasons prevent users from copying text from a PDF document onto other platforms.

One of the major concerns involving this is the pre-settings of the PDF document. If the document is read-only, it is nearly impossible to copy and paste content from a PDF document. With users unable to make any changes in the document, they cannot select the text written within it. In other cases, your PDF document can be password-protected, not allowing other people to copy and paste content from the PDF.

Protecting the document is equivalent to understanding that the author or distributor of the PDF document has not allowed you to duplicate the document. If your PDF file is scanned, the content will not be actual text.

You won't be able to copy from the PDF directly. After launching PDFelement, drag and drop your scanned or image-based PDF file into the program window or click "Open files" to open it. Click on the Perform OCR button on the top notification bar.

A pop-up window will appear where you can also adjust the language settings. You can then use the mouse to select the text, image, or table you want to copy. Copy the item and paste it into a separate document as required.

Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. This will open your Google Drive if you're logged in. If you aren't signed in, click Go to Drive and sign in with your Google account now. Not only will you be able to copy both text and usually images with this method, you'll also be able to convert the PDF into a document that you can edit in nearly any word processor—even if it was scanned as an image, and even copy protection was enabled by the author.

It's at the upper-left corner of the page. This opens a menu. Click File upload on the menu. This opens your computer's file browser. You'll see a message that says "Upload Complete" at the bottom-right corner of the page when the upload is complete. Right-click the PDF and select Open with. A menu will expand. Click Google Docs. Google Drive's OCR software isn't perfect, and there may be some errors or parts of the text that couldn't be converted. Now that the document is open in Google Docs, you can edit it here if you'd like.

Download the converted document optional. If your goal was to create an editable document from the PDF that includes any images and hopefully formatting, you don't have to copy the contents into a new document—just save the current document and download it to your computer so you can edit it as needed.

Select Microsoft Word. Select a saving location and click Save. You're done! Highlight the content you want to copy. If you prefer the contents of the PDF into another app, start by highlighting what you want to copy by clicking and dragging the mouse over the content.

Click the Edit menu and select Copy. This copies the selection to your clipboard. Paste the copied content into a new document. You can open a program like Microsoft Word on your computer if you'd like. To paste the copied content, right-click the typing area and select Paste.

Method 2. Click the Tools menu. It's at the top of the screen. Click Text Selection to copy text. This option lets you copy the text in the PDF and paste it as editable text into another app. If you want to copy in more of a screenshot-type style and paste the copied info as an image, select Rectangular selection instead. If you really need the images, you can also use Google Drive to convert the PDF to a Google Doc—this makes it possible to select and copy images.

Click and drag the cursor over the content you want to copy. This highlights the selection. If this doesn't highlight anything, it's likely that the PDF was scanned as an image and doesn't contain editable text. It's also possible the document was copy-protected. See the Google Drive method to learn how to convert it to a format that you can copy from. This copies the information to your clipboard. Open a document to paste into. For example, if you want to paste the copied information into a Microsoft Word document, open a new document in Word.

Right-click the typing area and select Paste.