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Pasting without column formatting

mkisow
Registered: Jun 4 2009
Posts: 5

I tried to search with no luck.

I am pasting from a PDF to word. The text I am copying from the pdf is in a narrow column. When I paste into word I would like the text to be expanded to fill the entire width of the document. Any ideas besides backspacing before each line?

thanks!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.0, Macintosh
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Hi,
When you copy from the PDF you pick up all the characters; so, the ΒΆ character is included.
This reflects the layout/format set in the authoring file from which the PDF was created.
Trying to alter the PDF could prove to be awkward.

If you've the authoring/source file you can edit it.
As you are doing the copy-paste it is likely that you do not have this file .So, a couple of things to try.

1.
Once the copy-paste from PDF to Word is done use Word's Find and Replace.
Go the the "Replace with:" field and insert a space character.
Place the mouse cursor in the "Find what:" field.
Click on the "More" button in the Find and Replace dialog.
Click on the "Special" button.
Select "Paragraph Mark" - "^p" should show in the "Find what:" field.
Now "Find Next" and then "Replace" or use "Replace All".

2. Use "Save As" to save the PDF to a text file (*.txt).
Open this text file with your word processor application.

While #1 is interesting (sort of), I kinda like #2.
Ran a quick test on a PDF made from a 3 column file containing dummy text and some Headings.
#2 worked nicely.

Be well...

Be well...

mkisow
Registered: Jun 4 2009
Posts: 5
Like a charm! Thanks!