My friend and I were trying to figure out if you can copy a PDF to a text editor

I told him that sometimes this had worked for me and other times it didn't over the last 20 years or so of Blogging but I know it was possible especially from about 2007 until 2015 at least.

It's still possible to do this. I was telling him how I was making hard copies of my longer writings in case there was a worldwide internet failure or major power outage that wiped out Servers around the world like a nuclear blast or major sun event like 1852 Carrington event. 

I use the copy and paste method usually if you are moving less than 1000 words this works for me. Because Adobe Acrobat can cost you 150 dollars a month which he uses for sound editing I believe. 

Here is the info regarding copying a PDF to another text editor:

AI Mode

All

Videos

Short videos

Images

Forums

Shopping

More

Tools

 

Yes, you can easily copy content from a PDF to Word or another text editor by directly copying and pasting for small amounts of text, or by using dedicated PDF-to-Word conversion tools for larger documents, such as Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word's built-in converter. For scanned or image-based PDFs, you'll need an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool to extract the text, which many conversion tools provide. 

Method 1: Copy and Paste (for small text sections)

1. Open: the PDF in a PDF viewer like Adobe Reader. 

4. 
   

Method 2: Convert to Word (for larger, complex, or image-based documents)

1. Use a PDF converter: Many services, including Adobe's online tool and features within Microsoft Word, can convert PDFs into editable Word documents. 

4. 
   

Method 3: Use OCR for Scanned PDFs 

1. Use a tool with OCR: Software like PDFgear or Adobe Acrobat has OCR features that convert image-based text into editable text.
2. Import: the scanned PDF into the tool.
3. Run the OCR process: to recognize and extract the text.
4. Copy the extracted text: to the clipboard and paste it into your Word document.

• How to insert a PDF into Word using copy and paste | Adobe Acrobat

  Convert, copy, and paste PDF into Word. The best way to add editable PDFs to a Word document is to convert the PDF first. It's eas...

  

  Adobe

• 
• Show all

Dive deeper in AI Mode

Select: the desired text with your mouse. 

Copy: the text by pressing Ctrl+C (Windows) or Command+C (Mac), or by right-clicking and choosing "Copy". 

Open: your target application (e.g., Word, Notepad) and paste the text using Ctrl+V or Command+V, or by right-clicking and choosing "Paste". 

Open the PDF: in a converter or in Word itself. 

Follow the prompts: to export or convert the PDF to a Word document (DOC or DOCX). 

Download: the new Word file. 

How to Copy PDF to Word without Losing Formatting

Feb 7, 2022 — then you can easily copy or edit any of its contents. it's very simple to do. so what are the copy and paste methods in...

YouTube · 

Wondershare PDFelement

Convert PDF to Word: A free online converter - Adobe Acrobat

Yes, Adobe Acrobat can handle scanned PDFs and convert them into editable Word documents. For better results, use our Optical Char...

Adobe