Select Sentence in PDF

[Layne P. Heiny]

Hello ON group:

I am using the ON 2007 beta and have imported PDFs. I would like to select just a sentence or two from the PDFs and copy paste these to an MS Word document. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Rainald Taesler]

I am using the ON 2007 beta and have imported PDFs.
I would like to select just a sentence or two from
the PDFs and copy paste these to an MS Word document.
I cannot seem to figure out how to do this.
Anyone have any suggestions?

You are not alone :-( :-(

PDFs printed into ON are kept there as images and do no longer have
their original format which allows copying text (and even pictures)in
Acrobat ad/or the Reader.

Unfortunately ON has no corresponding feature to mark a part of an
image.
The only way I see is to copy+paste all of the text of an imported
page and then cut off what's unwanted. Not too elegant :-( :-(

This is one of the reasons why I decided to give up the idea of
keeping PDF-files (if it's more than just a page or two) in ON. I'll
use Acrobat's binder instead for organizing PDFs and I'm not too
amused :-( :-(

Rainald

 

[Layne P. Heiny]

This is apparently a feature I interpreted when OCR was discussed ... the
feature would be sweet.

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Layne P. Heiny shared these words of wisdom:

This is apparently a feature I interpreted when OCR was discussed
...
the feature would be sweet.

Yes, it would. Not only for imported PDFs but fro other stuff printed
into ON too (be it Word documents or PowerPoint slides).

Adobe solved this problem long ago. Their "Paper Capture" features has
been there since Acrobat 4.0 (originally as an add-on and integrated
in the later versions).
I cannot say if it was doable at all in the totally different document
format used in ON.

But it seems that in ON a similar concept for the background OCR seems
to be used. When searching the searched word is highlighted. So there
seems to be layer with the text extracted behind the image. And if it
was possible to mark an area on the image it might be possible to
capture the text in that area.
But that's speculation of a person not knowing anything on the
internals of ON.

For sure we won't see a feature like this in the coming version.
But IMO it would be good to raise this topic on "Connect" as
suggestion for the list of new/improved features for the future.
If you would do that and let us know in here, I'd jump in with my
thoughts.

Rainald

 

[Grant Robertson]

Hello ON group:

I am using the ON 2007 beta and have imported PDFs. I would like
to select just a sentence or two from the PDFs and copy paste these
to an MS Word document. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this.

I just drag the file to the ON page and choose the bottom option. That
also copies the file to the ON database and puts a file link to the
original file. I delete that text link and keep the icon link. I know
there are bugs with the icon links but I find it is not too much trouble
to exit then restart OneNote if I ever do need to open that original file
from the icon link. Plus, I know that but will be fixed in the final
release. This does double up on the space consumed by the document but it
is good to have a marked up and original version anyway. I thought of
getting some separate PDF markup or annotator program but then I wouldn't
be able to search within both the document and my annotations. Again,
though I have complaints about how they do it in ON, I still have opted
to use it exclusively in the end. The other options just don't give me
the main thing I want: searching through everything as one big database.

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Grant Robertson shared these words of wisdom:

Again, though I have complaints about
how they do it in ON, I still have opted to use it exclusively in
the
end.

Different on my side.
There are simply too many drawbacks with importing documents of more
than only a few pages into ON.

The other options just don't give me the main thing I want:
searching through everything as one big database.

I would have liked that too. But it does not really work - at least
for me.
Bud needs are different.
I for one sadly came to the result that keeping PDFs in Acrobat
binders and only using links in ON is the better way for my needs.
And if it comes to searching: Acrobat's index-based search-enige IMO
is far superior to what ON has to offer.

An if it comes to "searching .. as one big database:
WDS 3.0 with the iFilter is quite good with PDFs and once the bugs in
ON will be fixed, WDS can be used for searching through both, ON and
Acrobat (apart form other stuff like mail and Docs and PPT etc.,
etc.).

Rainald

 

[Layne P. Heiny]

Thank you for the responses but I have thousands of pages of PDF documents
added monthly that I read, annotate, and need to reference. There really is
a need for pulling out just a sentence or two from these files after they
have been imported. Maybe someday

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Layne P. Heiny shared these words of wisdom:

Thank you for the responses but I have thousands of pages of PDF
documents added monthly that I read, annotate, and need to
reference.
There really is a need for pulling out just a sentence or two from
these files after they have been imported.

With thousands of pages of PDF documents I would for sure not do it in
OneNote except just keeping references).
And if you need to extract just a sentence or two this cannot be done
in ON.

As said: The "binders" in Acrobat are a fine tool for organizing
access to single PDFs.
And for annotating with a keyboard Acrobat has fine tools.
For annotating with ink on a TabletPC check PDFAnnotator:
http://www.ograhl.com/en/pdfannotator/

Maybe someday

For sure not in the near future. [siiigh]

Rainald

 

[EMRhelp.org]

The other options just don't give me
the main thing I want: searching through everything as one big database.

Are you using WDS to accomplish your "searching as one big database" ?

 

[Layne P. Heiny]

PDF Annotator did not work for me. Some of the PDFs are 600+ pages and a
previous version of the annotator destroyed the files ...

--
Layne P. Heiny
(e-mail address removed)
"The latest statistics show that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the
population."

Layne P. Heiny shared these words of wisdom:

Thank you for the responses but I have thousands of pages of PDF
documents added monthly that I read, annotate, and need to reference.
There really is a need for pulling out just a sentence or two from
these files after they have been imported.

With thousands of pages of PDF documents I would for sure not do it in
OneNote except just keeping references).
And if you need to extract just a sentence or two this cannot be done in
ON.

As said: The "binders" in Acrobat are a fine tool for organizing access to
single PDFs.
And for annotating with a keyboard Acrobat has fine tools.
For annotating with ink on a TabletPC check PDFAnnotator:
http://www.ograhl.com/en/pdfannotator/

Maybe someday

For sure not in the near future. [siiigh]

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Layne P. Heiny shared these words of wisdom:

PDF Annotator did not work for me. Some of the PDFs are 600+ pages
and a previous version of the annotator destroyed the files ...

Really bad ...
Did you contact their support?

And as you say a "previous version", did you check things with the
latest build?

Rainald