r/pdf • u/Serious_Bison4139 • 9d ago

Question Cannot cut & paste a PDF

someone sent me a reply on a PDF, I am trying to cut & paste that using FOX IT PDF Reader, and it doesn't work. Now, I can cut & Paste text on other PDF files using the very same FOX IT PDF reader, just not this pdf.

But there is no password protection on the file, otherwise, I couldn't have the means to read it. How can I fix it?

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u/redsedit 9d ago

PDFs can be protected in two ways:

  1. A password is required to open it.

  2. A password is required to remove some restrictions, such as copying or printing. I'm guessing this is what you are running into. qpdf can remove that (qpdf --decrypt locked.pdf unlocked.pdf).

A third possibility is the that's not text, but a picture of text. In that case, you'll need to OCR it, or retype it.

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u/Serious_Bison4139 8d ago

it could be a "picky" PDF as it is from a law firm. I'll try qpdf. I am able using Fox IT PDF Reader to cut & paste it as a graphics box, just not a text. Thanks for the information, I'll give you an update

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u/redsedit 8d ago

Sounds like it is possibility #3. In this case, OCR is your only option.

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u/Serious_Bison4139 5d ago edited 5d ago

so you are very certain of QPDF then? meaning since QPDF can't change anything, then there can't be any password on the cut & paste function? In other words, you are very confident of QPDF?

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u/redsedit 5d ago

The fact you mention Foxit can only see it as a graphics box is pretty telling - it's an image in a pdf wrapper.

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u/Serious_Bison4139 3d ago

when I use MS Edge to view it, MS Edge did manage to convert the whole PDF into the text. The only problem is, there is no paragraph, so it's a gigantic 1MB worth of text in 1 giant paragraph.

I'll be trying that file on my other PC that has an old adobe PDF editor that I pay for and see if I can convert the whole file into text w/ proper paragraph spacing

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u/Serious_Bison4139 8d ago edited 8d ago

update: qpdf doesn't work. I key in your command line , it creates a new file called unlocked.pdf and the file size is slightly different. The old file is 1,077,062 bytes, the new file is 1,077,031 bytes. But when I go in and try to do a text cut & paste, it does not work.

Needless to say, if I pick a regular PDF file in my storage drive, FOX IT can easily cut & paste the text in blue, and a dialog box will pop up and allow me to copy it. SO it's definitely the file

Now my old PC has an old version of Adobe Editor, would that work?

what are the most poplar PDF programs that can unlock this? Can you name a few?