Acrobat Resources

TIP #82

Selecting Text in a PDF

If you need to reuse content on a PDF document, but you didn’t cre­ate it and you can’t get a copy of the source document, you can use Acrobat’s tools to select and repurpose the content. Sometimes you’ll want to combine pieces from several PDFs into a single document, in which case it’s much more efficient to work with the PDF files rather than the source material.

Acrobat provides a single Select tool that behaves differently depend­ing on what you are selecting on a document. Acrobat provides a single Select tool that behaves differently depending on what you’re selecting on a document. You don’t even have to change tools to select different types of content! The Select tool is located on the Basic toolbar.

You use this tool to select text, images, and tables. In addition to the tool being dynamic and changing depending on the object over which it is placed, it also provides a small pop-up menu of options you can select, again reflecting the type of object. In this tip we’ll learn how to select text.

Note: Don’t confuse the Select tool on the Basic toolbar with the Select Object tool located on the Advanced Editing toolbar. The Select Object tool selects items like links and form fields.

Follow these steps to select text:

1. Click the Select tool on the Basic toolbar to make it active and then click and drag over some of the text you want to select. The text is highlighted in gray, and small arrows display at the upper left and lower right of the selection (Figure 1).

Note: If you prefer precise selections, click the text where you want the selection to start, and then Shift-click where you want the selection to end; the text between the two points is selected.

Figure 1

2. Click and drag either arrow to add text to the selection. Hold the pointer over the selected text for a couple of seconds until the Select Text icon displays (Figure 2).

Figure 2

3. Now move the pointer over the icon to display the menu list­ing options you can choose depending on the content selected (Figure 3). For general use, click Copy to Clipboard.

Figure 3

4. Open the document you want to add the text to and paste it in place.

The Select tool is also great for selecting precise words and phrases to use for links and bookmarks.

This tip was excerpted from:
Adobe Acrobat 7 Tips and Tricks: The 150 Best by Donna Baker.
Copyright © 2005 Donna Baker.
Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Adobe Press.

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