Copy Paste not working as expected.

[jamesgriggs]

I have PDFs of invoices that have searchable and selectable text. However, there are a handful of fields that I cannot copy/paste. I can select them and hit copy, but when I paste, I get a blank single character.

These PDFs are not secured, and not images. Opening the pdf in a browser or Adobe reader, I can copy and paste these fields just fine.

In PDFXChange, much of the document works just fine, but a few of the item descriptions and part IDs behave as I've described, and those are the fields I really need to be able to copy/paste.

I would love to attach the .pdf here, but it has confidential company information on it, so I cannot, but I was hoping that maybe this was a common enough bug that others had run into it.

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Hello jamesgriggs,

Welcome to our Forum.

May I ask which version is your PDF Editor?

You can see that under the Help -> About menu.

..and if possible, a screenshot of the field's properties:

image.png

[jamesgriggs]

Sure, its 10.5.2, build 395

[jamesgriggs]

image.png

When I look at the properties of the selected text that won't paste, I see the above.

[jamesgriggs]

If I look at the properties of the 'page content' while the area is affected, I see this.

image.png

[jamesgriggs]

Also, I can show a snip with out without identifying any supplier information. The highlighted pink area is what I cannot copy/paste. Everything else works fine. This is also not unique to this individual order, but happens to others that also are generated from the same system.

image.png

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, jamesgriggs

if the pink area there is showing the properties pane you sent above, specifically, with the title bar stating "page content properties" and not "text properties", that indicates the selected items are not text content, and likely cannot be edited as such.

If this is consistent when generating files from this other software, it is very likely that either this content in that software is also not text, or there is a special property on their end causing these items to be intentionally converted to a non-font based format, to make modification harder. You will want to contact the creators of that software, and ask why they are generating PDF files this way, or sending that section of the page to a printer as anything other than text.

In the meantime, if you hold a licnese for the Editor Plus (or PDF-Xchange PRO) you can try running Enhanced OCR on the file using our software, to generate editable text. Ensure that the "ignore existing page text" option is enabled when you do this. While this is a passable workaround for the moment, OCR is not perfect, so it would be better to address the root of the problem, and ensure that your documents can be created with proper text in place to begin with.

Finally, I understand if you cannot send the document on our public forum, is there any chance you could send us a copy of the file by email, for an extended investigation? Our email address is Support@PDF-Xchange.com Please include a link to this forum post in that email.

Kind regards,