Never Re-Type Text

Don't ever make a keyboard entry of text that is accessible from somewhere else. PDF documents, for instance, almost always contain the raw text from which styled and formatted display text is generated. Usually, you can use the type tool in Adobe Reader to select the raw text, which you can then copy and paste into your working document.

If you cannot select text from a PDF, it may be contained within an image. Another possibility is that the program displaying the text may not have a text-selection tool. Acrobat Reader has such a tool.

If the text is contained within an image, you can use an online OCR program to extract the text. In this case, however, you must take care to inspect the text for anomalies that may occur where characters have been misinterpreted.

See also:

• The Adobe Acrobat 9 manual help entry for copying text from a PDF.
• Free Online OCR.