One of the most used operations during the creation or correction of a document is undoubtedly that of copy and paste. With Copy & Paste you can easily move blocks of text, insert new content and much more in just a few seconds. If you have a PDF file in your hands and try to copy text from PDF and paste it into the same document or into another PDF file, you will notice that it does not work. You may be able to copy the text from the PDF and paste it into a text document or Word or Powerpoint, but you will certainly not be able to copy and paste to another PDF.
Then there is also the case of PDFs scannedwhich are files where it is impossible to select or copy text and it is essential to use PDF Editor programs. Below we will see how to solve these problems and be able to copy and paste on any PDF!
Copy and paste to “standard” PDF
- Open the PDF: Use a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, or any other software that supports editing PDF files.
- Select text: Use the text selection tool to highlight the text you want to copy. Usually, you can find this tool in the PDF reader toolbar.
- Copy the text: After selecting the text, right-click on the highlighted text and select “Copy” from the pop-up menu. Or, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C (or Cmd+C on Mac) to copy the selected text.
- Paste the text: Open the program or document into which you want to paste the text and place the cursor where you want the text to appear. Then, right-click and select “Paste” from the pop-up menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V on Mac) to paste the copied text.
Copy and Paste on “Non-Standard” PDF
The program to use when you can't copy and paste a PDF is called PDFelement.
This software is available in a “trial” version for both Windows and Mac and can be downloaded from the following buttons:
Here is the initial screen you will see immediately after installation:
How to Copy and Paste Scanned PDFs
If the PDF you want to select and copy text from is a scanned file or consists entirely of images, the only solution is to use the OCR present in PDFelement that will allow you to convert the PDF into an editable file, on which you can copy and also paste text and images.
First install and open PDFelement. From the main program screen click OPEN FILE and select the PDF.
If the imported PDF is scanned, a note will appear advising you to download and enable the OCR function.
After clicking on “Perform OCR” the program will transform the PDF document into a fully editable document on which you can then copy and paste text.
If the PDF is not scanned, simply click on the “Edit” menu at the top and then move the mouse cursor to select text, images or tables and copy them freely into other documents.
If the PDF file from which you want to copy text and images is password protected or has limitations, with PDFelement you can try to work around the problem. Here's how: once you open the PDF in PDFelement click on the button “Enable Edit” to enter the password. At this point you just have to follow the procedure below to copy and paste of the desired text.
Alternative Method: Copy and Paste to PDF after Conversion
PDF Converter Pro is a powerful software that allows you to convert PDF into editable documents. You can transform and convert your PDF into a format like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and HTML, in short, formats where you can easily copy and paste text and images.
First download and install PDF Converter PRO on your PC or Mac
After opening the program click on “Add File” and import the PDF whose content you want to copy. You can import up to 200 PDFs. Bulk uploading is supported and is ideal for saving time. At the top right instead select the output format: “Microsoft Word”.
Finally press the button “Convert” to start converting PDF to fully editable Microsoft Word. Once done, click on the folder icon to open the Word document, from which you can easily copy text/images and paste them into any other document.
Within minutes, you will have full control over the text content of your documents.
