Author:
John Stephens
Date Of Creation:
26 January 2021
Update Date:
1 July 2024
Content
This article shows you how to copy the content of a PDF file and paste it into a Microsoft Word document (or similar). If the PDF file was created from a document on your computer, you can use the free Acrobat Reader program to copy the content; however, if a PDF file is scanned (scanned) onto a computer from a paper document or has anti-copy enabled, you will need to use Google Drive to recognize and convert the text. You can use an online converter to directly convert PDF files to Microsoft Word documents if either of the above options is ineffective.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Use Adobe Acrobat Reader
Open Acrobat Reader. Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is Adobe's free PDF viewer. Depending on the type of PDF downloaded, you can select and copy the contents of the PDF file using this program.
- If you do not have Adobe Reader, you can download and install it for free.
Open the PDF file. Click File (File), select Open (Open) in the pop-up menu, select your PDF file and click Open in the lower-right corner of the window.- If Adobe Reader is not the default PDF program, simply double-click the PDF file you want to view to open it with Acrobat Reader.
Click Edit (Edit) in the upper-left corner of the Acrobat Reader window (on Windows) or in the upper-left corner of the screen (on a Mac). The screen will display a list of choices.
Click Select All (Select All) in the menu Edit (Edit). This action selects all text on the page except the image.- If all of the text is highlighted in blue, you cannot copy and paste the text as text. You will need to use Google Drive.
Click Edit (Edit) again, and then click Copy (Copy) to copy the selected text.
- If the PDF file has multiple pages, you will have to go back and copy each other after pasting the contents of this page.
Open a new document. Usually, you'll need to open a program like Microsoft Word, Pages, or Google Docs.
- You can use a text editor like Notepad or TextEdit, but the format of the PDF will be changed if you use this option.
Paste copied content by pressing Ctrl+V (on Windows) or ⌘ Command+V (on Mac). You will see the content copied from the PDF displayed in the text.
- If the keyboard shortcut doesn't work, you can click on the blank page of the text and try again.
- You can also right-click on the page and select Paste (Paste) in the currently displayed menu.
Method 2 of 3: Use Google Drive
Use this method when the PDF file contains the text encoded into an image. Scanned PDF files are often displayed as image files instead of text files. You will need to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert images into selectable text. Google Drive comes with a free built-in OCR service when posting PDF files, and is usually effective in most cases.
- If the PDF file has the copy protection feature set, Google Drive cannot remove the PDF file protection setting while performing the OCR step.
Open Google Drive by visiting https://drive.google.com/ from your favorite browser. This will open the Google Drive page if you're signed in.
- If you aren't logged into your Google account, enter your email address and password before proceeding.
Click the button NEW (New) in blue in the top-left corner of the Drive page. The screen will display a list of choices.
Click File upload (Download file) at the top of the pop-up menu to open a new window.
Select a PDF file by clicking on the desired file.
- You may first have to click on the folder containing the PDF file on the left side of the window.
Click Open (Open) in the lower-right corner of the window to upload PDF files to Google Drive.
Select the uploaded PDF file. Once the PDF file is uploaded to Google Drive, you'll click on it to select it.
Click ⋮ at the top of the page to open a selection list.
Choose Open with (Open with) near the top of the menu. You will see another menu show up next to this option.
Click Google Docs in the menu. This will require Drive to scan the text of the PDF file into a Google Doc - this may take a little time depending on the file's text length.
Check to see which text has been converted. The Google Drive OCR program is not perfect and may cause errors or not convert all the text. You will see a lot of white space between sections; so check to make sure the entire text has been converted.
- If you get an error, you can fix it in Google Docs before copying the text.
Select text. Click Edit (Edit) in the top-left corner of the page, then select Select all (Select All) in the menu.
Copy the text by clicking Edit again and choose Copy (Copy).
Open a new document. Usually, you'll need to open a program like Microsoft Word, Pages, or Google Docs.
- You can use a text editor like Notepad or TextEdit, but the format of the PDF will be changed if you use this option.
Paste the copied text by pressing Ctrl+V (on Windows) or ⌘ Command+V (on Mac). You will see the PDF content displayed in the text.
- If the keyboard shortcut doesn't work, you can click on a blank page in the text and try again.
- You can also right-click on the page and select Paste (Paste) in the currently displayed menu.
Method 3 of 3: Convert PDF to Word
Open the PDF to Word conversion page by visiting http://pdf2doc.com/ from your favorite browser.
- This page only converts PDF files to Word, and does not support copying and pasting text.
Click the button UPLOAD FILES (Download file) in the center of the page to open a new window.
Select the PDF file by clicking on the file you want to use.
- You may first have to click on the folder containing the PDF file on the left side of the window.
Click Open (Open) in the lower right corner of the window to upload the PDF file to the converting page.
Click the button DOWNLOAD The yellow (Download) color appears below the PDF file name after the download and conversion is complete. This is the action to download a PDF file in Word format.
- You can open Word documents by double-clicking the file and editing the content copied from the PDF file.
- Note, PDF files scanned onto your computer will be in image format when downloaded. You will need to use Google Drive to process these files.
Advice
- When converting text using Google Drive, the font of the PDF file may affect character recognition. You will successfully convert the text when the PDF file has a clear, easy-to-read font.
Warning
- Not all PDF files will allow you to copy text, as some text is secure (meaning you need a password to access it).
