Re: Pasting pdf tables into another application

["D. Margulis" <ampersandvirgule -at- WORLDNET -dot- ATT -dot- NET>]

Mark,

Three responses:

1.      Why are you doing this? Think of PDF not as a document format but as
virtual paper. It is an efficient way to move copies around for people
to read, but it contains much less information than, say, an RTF file.
So if you really want people to copy information from your documents for
reuse, perhaps you should convert them to RTF or all the way to Word.

2.      www.emerge.com has a number of third-party plug-ins available for
Acrobat that _claim_ to be able to suck tables out of PDF's and into RTF
for pasting into Word. The ones I've tried are less than spectacular. In
particular, they tend to choke on any table cell that turns over into a
multi-line entry. Caveat emptor, big time.

3.      This one is free, and anyone can do it. The disadvantage is that the
table comes out as a graphic, not something that can be edited. Use the
graphics selection tool (Ctrl-Shift-5) to drag a box around the table.
While it is selected, use the zoom (magnifying glass) tool to increase
the resolution of the image (zoom once for decent quality, twice for
great quality but a large file size). Then copy the selected and zoomed
table to the clipboard and paste it as a graphic.

HTH,

Dick




Mark Dempsey wrote:
>
> We make our Frame docs into pdf files to distribute (the advantage over
> FrameViewer: embedded fonts in pdf).  One limitation for such files,
> however, is that the tables do not copy and paste into, e.g., a word
> document as tables. The words are there but the formatting is not.
> Anyone know a work-around for this?
>
> Regards,
>
> -- mailto:Mark -dot- Dempsey -at- osi -dot- com
> --
> -- Mark Dempsey
> -- Technical Publications
> -- Objective Systems Integrators
> -- 101 Blue Ravine Rd, Folsom, CA 95630
> -- 916.353.2400 x 4777
>