On Thu, 15 Apr 2021 08:31:04 +0000, Dieter Britz wrote:
With most pdfs, I can mark a bit of text for copying it, by
passing the mouse arrow over it or, in the case of Okular, I
can frame it and ask for it to go into the text buffer.
I am used to not being able to do this with old pdfs, but I
occasionally find a modern pdf that won't allow it. Why is this?
Can I do anything about it, like changing some property of such
a pdf?
PDFs can contain text and images, either or both. PDFs with text
can be selected. Pictures of text in images (scans) can't be selected
unless the picture has been OCRed and the text included with the
image in the PDF.
There's nothing you can do about it. The PDF has text or it doesn't
With that said, there are security properties that can be set to
prevent copying the text. It's up to the viewing program to respect
that setting. There are tools that can change those settings, but
I can't name any off the top of my head. Pdftk can probably do it.
I don't think this property is used very often. More often the PDF
is simply a picture of text that hasn't been OCRed.
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