Copying text from PDF... um.. broken? - !!!!!!

[iTim314]

Okay, the title says it all. For some reason, I can't copy text from a PDF anymore.

I'm trying to copy text from my school's newspaper PDF so I can put the new stories on the website before the papers are distributed.

But for some reason, it's not wanting to copy from a PDF. I tried opening it in Preview and Safari, no luck.


PLEASE help. Thanks!

 

[italiano40]

is their an I sysmbol on the pdf use that to copy text not the mouse cusors

 

[mkrishnan]

Was the PDF created to allow copying? There is a flag or option that can be set in PDF generation that prohibits copying from the file. When I download journal articles, most of them copy / paste fine, but certain journals don't let me ever copy text out of the articles (so I have to write the title into a citation by hand, for instance).

 

[MisterMe]

Was the PDF created to allow copying? There is a flag or option that can be set in PDF generation that prohibits copying from the file. When I download journal articles, most of them copy / paste fine, but certain journals don't let me ever copy text out of the articles (so I have to write the title into a citation by hand, for instance).

Also, not all PDFs are created equal. Most maintain the identity of the text and the fonts used to display it. Many have the text converted to outlines. Still others are raster images of the source documents. Until the OP gives the source of his PDFs, there is no way to tell which of the three types of data they are.