PDF -- Copying and pasting from Acrobat Reader 5 to MSWord

[Benjamin Sher]

Dear friends:

While talking to a computer programmer earlier this evening
about a project we are working on, I discovered to my
delight that you CAN copy and paste from any Roman
character TEXT in Acrobat Reader 5.05 (that's the latest
version available for free for Windows, Mac and Linux from
http://www.acrobat.com) to MSWord (or, I'd assume, to
WordPerfect or other word processors). Open any English-
language PDF file in the free Acrobat Reader. On the
toolbar, right next to the magnifying glass, you'll see a big T
and another square icon right next to it. Click on the T with
you mouse, then highlight any text in your document. Now
go to Edit, Copy in Acrobat, copy it, then open MSWord and
paste it into a blank document. Presto! There is the text!
You can now edit it, format it, do whatever you want to with
it.

As if this were not enough, you can also copy and paste
GRAPHICS from a PDF document. Open a PDF document
with some graphics or pictures in it. Click on the icon to the
right of the T, then draw a line around any graphics, copy it
and paste it into MSWord. Incredible!

The only drawback is Cyrillic. You cannot normally copy and
paste Cyrillic TEXT in Acrobat. However, there is a
workaround:

You can always copy any Cyrillic text as a GRAPHIC, that
is, click on the graphic icon in the Acrobat toolbar (the one
right next to the T -- see above) and draw a line with your
mouse around any Cyrillic TEXT. Copy it (Edit, Copy) and
paste it into any document in Word (or WordPerfect). It will
paste easily enough, but you can NOT manipulate it, i.e.
edit it in any way except by moving the "graphic" block as a
whole.

One interesting footnote: The AdobePDFWriter printer
driver, available to many of you who have an Adobe product
(especially the Adobe Photo Deluxe program that comes
with many scanners) will save a document in PDF format
(e.g. in MSWord -- see my earlier message on this) but only
Roman character texts. It will produce only computer
garbage when you attempt to save a Cyrillic text in MSWord
in PDF format. However, the PDF995 printer driver WILL
save an MSWord Cyrillic document in PDF format. I've
tested both and the PDF995 version will show up in glorious
Cyrillic in Acrobat after being created in MSWord (for step-
by-step instructions on how to use either of these printer
drivers in MSWord or any program, please see my earlier
messages to the list).

All of the programs that I have mentioned above and in
earlier messages are absolutely FREE. And most can be
used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes
(read the license terms for each).

Hope this helps those who need this kind of help.

Benjamin


Sher's Russian Web
http://www.websher.net
Benjamin and Anna Sher
sher07 at mindspring.com

Sher's Russian Web
http://www.websher.net
Benjamin and Anna Sher
sher07 at mindspring.com

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