A simple question on copy/paste

[Stephen Liu]

Hi folks,

FC5_64
======

What will be the simple way to copy and paste selected text/paragraph
from .ps/.pdf file on text editor?

Occasionally I printed technical documents on Internet as .ps file. 
However I was unable to copy/paste their content on .txt file without
going through a long way, treating them as graphic file.  Conversion
.ps -> .pdf -> .html was not alway working perfectively without error. 
The version of Acroread (Acrobat Reader) running on this box does not
have text-selecting function.  Saving technical documents on Internet
is sometimes prohibitted.

Please shed me some light.  TIA

B.R.
SL

[Gordon Messmer]

Stephen Liu wrote:
>  
>  What will be the simple way to copy and paste selected text/paragraph
>  from .ps/.pdf file on text editor? 
...
>  The version of Acroread (Acrobat Reader) running on this box does
> not
>  have text-selecting function. 
Don't use Acroread, then.  Gnome, for instance, uses Evince by default.

>  Saving technical documents on Internet is sometimes prohibitted.
By policy?  Technically, you save a document every time you open it from 
the internet, so that's pretty silly.  If you need to, reconfigure your 
browser so as to not use Acroread.

[Stephen Liu]

Hi Gordon and folks,

>  Don't use Acroread, then.  Gnome, for instance, uses Evince by
>  default. 
I tried Evince which is not on the menu.  I started it on Terminal. 
However I could not find a text-selecting tool there.


>  > Saving technical documents on Internet is sometimes
> prohibitted.
>  
>  By policy?  Technically, you save a document every time you open it
>  from > the internet, so that's pretty silly. 
I did not meant those files on Internet for ready only.  Sometimes I
can save them as .html file and another I failed, especially the forms
for completion.  I have to use KSnapshot/"Take Screenshot" to do the
job.

B.R.
SL

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 23:43, Stephen Liu wrote:
>  Hi Gordon and folks,
>  
>  > Don't use Acroread, then.  Gnome, for instance, uses Evince by
>  > default.
>  
>  I tried Evince which is not on the menu.  I started it on Terminal. 
>  However I could not find a text-selecting tool there. 
Drag the mouse over text to highlight, then move to the
window where you want it and click the middle-mouse button.
Or, right-mouse while the text is selected and pick
'copy' from the pop up menu, go where you want it and
right-mouse/paste.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Stephen Liu]

Hi,

>  Drag the mouse over text to highlight, ... 
It did not work, no such a function.  I also tried "left button" +
"Shift/Ctrl/Alt" key.  Space key will move to another page.

B.R.
SL

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 23:58, Stephen Liu wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  > Drag the mouse over text to highlight, ...
>  
>  It did not work, no such a function.  I also tried "left button" +
>  "Shift/Ctrl/Alt" key.  Space key will move to another page. 
Try it with some different files.  I suspect that you have
a bit-image of text encoded in postscript like tex/dvi
generates out of its own ugly fonts, not actual text.  If you
have normal text using postscript fonts you should be able
to select it and then the right-mouse menu will show the copy
function.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Stephen Liu]

Hi,

>  Try it with some different files.  I suspect that you have
>  a bit-image of text encoded in postscript like tex/dvi
>  generates out of its own ugly fonts, not actual text. 
I got it.  .pdf files download on Internet their text can be
highlighted and copy/paste.

All documents on Internet printed as .ps files and/or later converted
to .pdf have problem.  Disregarding they can be retrieve and read,
their text can't be highlighted and copy/paste.  I don't know what
mistake committed.  Any suggestion?

TIA

B.R.
satimis

[James Wilkinson]

Stephen Liu wrote:
>  All documents on Internet printed as .ps files and/or later
> converted
>  to .pdf have problem.  Disregarding they can be retrieve and read,
>  their text can't be highlighted and copy/paste.  I don't know what
>  mistake committed.  Any suggestion? 
Text can be stored in a PDF as a series of numbers (e.g. 65 is A) plus
font information, or as a picture of the text. Exactly how this happens
depends on how the PDF was created (and in this case, how the PostScript
version was created in the first place -- often there'll be an option
somewhere in whatever created them to create bitmaps or include font
information).

Once it's turned into a picture, then there's no easy way to go back to
the text it was created from. This isn't a limitation of your program,
but of existing technology. There are "OCR" programs that can "read"
the
text in the same way as you or I would -- they look at the shapes, and
try to recognise letters. But they aren't foolproof (or particularly
fast).

Hope this helps,

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | Helpful Advice from Thames Water:
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | "If you have difficulty reading this leaflet,
                      | please ask someone to help you."
                      |     -- Read on "The News Quiz", BBC Radio 4

[Les Mikesell]

On 6/1/06, Stephen Liu <satimis(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote:

>  > Try it with some different files.  I suspect that you have
>  > a bit-image of text encoded in postscript like tex/dvi
>  > generates out of its own ugly fonts, not actual text.
>
>  I got it.  .pdf files download on Internet their text can be
>  highlighted and copy/paste.
>
>  All documents on Internet printed as .ps files and/or later converted
>  to .pdf have problem.  Disregarding they can be retrieve and read,
>  their text can't be highlighted and copy/paste.  I don't know what
>  mistake committed.  Any suggestion? 
Ghostscript includes a program called ps2ascii that might have a
chance at some ps and pdf files where evince won't copy the text
but even that won't work on the ones that have been rendered to
images.  If you look through the raw ps file and see big chunks of
hex data it is probably an image.

---
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Stephen Liu]

Hi Les Mikesell and folks,

I got my problem half-solved, print a webpage as .pdf file direct on
Internet.

Steps:

FC5_64 KDE desktop

File -> Print -> (on "Print" window) "Printer Name" select
"PostScript/default -> click "Properties" -> Change "lpr
${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME:+'-P'}${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME}" to "kprinter
--stdin"
(w/o quote) then [OK]

Clicking "Print" will start "Print-KPrinter" and from there select
"Print to File(PDF)   Under "Output file: type /path/to/your.pdf

Text on the .pdf file thus created worked with copy/paste command if
read on "Acroread".  BUT ONLY strange symbol pasted on .txt file.

I think there will be something wrong on the running "Acroread". 
Because each time evoking it started a warning;

"There was an error while loading the plug-in 'PPKLite.api'.  The
plug-in failed to initialize [OK]"


>  Ghostscript includes a program called ps2ascii that might have a
>  chance at some ps and pdf files where evince won't copy the text
>  but even that won't work on the ones that have been rendered to
>  images.   
ps2ascii is running on this box;
# which ps2ascii
/usr/bin/ps2ascii

It can't help.

$ ps2ascii /path/to/file.ps
\Delta \Theta \Lambda \Xi \Pi \Sigma \Pi \Upsilon \Phi \Xi \Psi \Omega
ff\Phi \Lambda \Xi fi\Phi \Psi fl\Psi ffi\Upsilon ffl\Xi \Psi \Omega
\Lambda \Xi \Sigma \Phi \Psi \Lambda i\Psi \Delta \Theta ji\Pi
`\Upsilon \Theta '\Psi ^i*\Pi \Psi \Delta \Theta _\Sigma i\Upsilon
\Theta \Lambda \Psi \Omega \Xi `*\Pi \Upsilon \Lambda ff *\Lambda
\Lambda \Sigma ,ssssaeaeaeoe\Xi \Phi o/oe`ifiss\Phi \Xi `*\Pi \Upsilon
\Lambda ffssAE\Pi \Lambda \Upsilon `OE\Xi oeAE\Phi \Sigma O/\Delta
_\Upsilon \Lambda i\Pi \Upsilon AEOE\Phi !"#$$$% $\Psi ij\Psi &
'(ss'$ss)''(\Psi '(,'&\Psi *+
....
.....
* end *

No conversion made.

B.R.
SL

[Stephen Liu]

Hi folks,

Further to my late posting, on closing down Evince following warning
popup;

(evince:7464): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_tree_model_foreach: assertion
`GTK_IS_TREE_MODEL (model)' failed

(evince:7464): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_list_store_clear: assertion
`GTK_IS_LIST_STORE (list_store)' failed


B.R.
SL



--- Stephen Liu <satimis(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi Gordon and folks,
>  
>  > Don't use Acroread, then.  Gnome, for instance, uses Evince by
>  > default.
>  
>  I tried Evince which is not on the menu.  I started it on Terminal. 
>  However I could not find a text-selecting tool there.
>  
>  
>  > > Saving technical documents on Internet is sometimes prohibitted.
>  > 
>  > By policy?  Technically, you save a document every time you open it
>  > from > the internet, so that's pretty silly.
>  
>  I did not meant those files on Internet for ready only.  Sometimes I
>  can save them as .html file and another I failed, especially the
>  forms
>  for completion.  I have to use KSnapshot/"Take Screenshot" to do the
>  job.
>  
>  B.R.

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:35, Stephen Liu wrote:

>  FC5_64
>  ======
>  
>  What will be the simple way to copy and paste selected text/paragraph
>  from .ps/.pdf file on text editor?
>  
>  Occasionally I printed technical documents on Internet as .ps file. 
>  However I was unable to copy/paste their content on .txt file without
>  going through a long way, treating them as graphic file.  Conversion
>  .ps -> .pdf -> .html was not alway working perfectively without error. 
>  The version of Acroread (Acrobat Reader) running on this box does not
>  have text-selecting function.  Saving technical documents on Internet
>  is sometimes prohibitted. 
Evince should be the default ps/pdf viewer on FC5 and it
allows text copies via the X buffer/clipboard.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Steffen Kluge]

On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 11:35 +0800, Stephen Liu wrote:
>  What will be the simple way to copy and paste selected
> text/paragraph
>  from .ps/.pdf file on text editor? 
Adobe Reader 7 (32bit) does have a text select function. It should work
on FC5_64bit as well (stand-alone).

Cheers
Steffen.

[Kevin Kofler]

Stephen Liu <satimis <at> yahoo.com> writes:
>  Occasionally I printed technical documents on Internet as .ps file. 
>  However I was unable to copy/paste their content on .txt file without
>  going through a long way, treating them as graphic file.  Conversion
>  .ps -> .pdf -> .html was not alway working perfectively without error. 
>  The version of Acroread (Acrobat Reader) running on this box does not
>  have text-selecting function.  Saving technical documents on Internet
>  is sometimes prohibitted. 
In KPDF, you can select a rectangle with the right mouse button and then 
copy&paste its contents as text or image. (KPDF also has an option to ignore 
the DRM restrictions, in case the PDF doesn't actually want you to copy text 
out of it, though using that is probably illegal at least in the US under the 
DMCA.)

        Kevin Kofler