Hello friends,
Sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere. I have yet to be able to find a way to select text inside a pdf to copy elsewhere, like a note. I don't want to copy or import the whole pdf in to a note, as it's a lengthy file, and I don't need the whole thing, just certain portions. I have a study guide for a Bible study my church is doing. I would like to be able to select the questions assigned to us weekly in the study guide, copy those in to a note or text document, then be able to write my answers in after each question.
Normal text navigation and selection does not seem to work inside Preview, unless I'm missing something. I am able to listen to text a page at a time, but when I try to actually select the text in question, it's a no go.
Thanks in advance for your help.
By Justin Harris, 22 November, 2024
Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Comments
Probably best to copy Last Spoken Text ...
Hi Justin,
It is probably easier with macOS to copy the last spoken text with VoiceOver, I believe the command is VO+Shift+C. Someone correct me if I have that wrong ...
Anyway, that is probably the best way to copy text from a PDF into something else. Keep in mind you will likely have to make small edits here and there.
HTH. 🙂
Thanks Brian. Yeah, was…
Thanks Brian. Yeah, was hoping for a way to actually go in and do precise selection, but what you are recommending makes sense.
I know that when I open in…
I know that when I open in Windows, I am able to select just fine, even just opening in Edge. At this point I'm thinking it might make more sense to just open it up on my VM to do all of this instead of fussing with it on the mac side.
Yeah I posted the same…
Yeah I posted the same question 2-3 weeks ago and got 0 answer but essentially text selection on the web (outside safari) and in pdf is quite cumbersome on the mac with voiceover. You can technically do within paragraph selection but it's not very reliable.
VO-Enter
You can try moving to the start of the text you want to select, interact, and then press VO-Enter to start text selection mode. Move to the end of the text you want to select with VoiceOver text navigation commands, and press VO-Enter again. Then, you can press Command-C to copy to the clipboard. However, this doesn't work well if the content spans multiple pages or is contained in multiple elements. It would be helpful if Preview let you navigate the content with the arrow keys and supported all the same standard macOS navigation commands, so you could use those commands to manipulate text. I'm going to suggest this to Apple Accessibility right now, along with a suggestion to add a VoiceOver command to speak the contents of the clipboard which could be useful.
Thanks for this. Will give…
Thanks for this. Will give it a try. I hope they take you up on that suggestion.
@Chris
Exactly I was too lazy to write but you did for me, thanks :)
In fact this is among my…
In fact this is among my main remaining grudges, selecting content on the web/pdf is much simpler on windows. If this can be corrected... :)
Microsoft Edge?
Someone said they could copy text on a PDF through Microsoft Edge, would that work with the Microsoft Edge app for macOS?
Just a thought ...
Brian
Brian, I use Edge to read pdfs on Windows and can easily select text there, but no idea on mac os.
Probably not. I tried edge…
Probably not. I tried edge on mac but not for pdf. Edge is chromium based, and in google chrome on the mac we have the same systemic inherit problem than with preview/safari when viewing pdfs. It's not exactly an issue but it's also due to how voiceover handle text in web/pdf content basically.
Mac versus the PDF
Will Apple ever, ever resolve this? Inquiring minds want to know ...
Feedback
I'll definitely be discussing this on the annual AppleVis report card. If enough people submit the same feedback and they seriously take the feedback from the report card into consideration, maybe it will happen. I have hope, particularly after the positive improvements that seem to be happening in Sequoia, but only time will tell.