Capturing Text from Acrobat PDF Files   Adobe Acrobat is great for distributing final versions of documents that look just like the original, without requiring the original software that created them. However, if you have to make changes to a PDF and can't get the original file used to create it, you may have to start over. Retyping is our enemy: it's time consuming, it potentially introduces errors, it wears down your hands. Use Acrobat's Text Select and Column Select tools to copy and paste text from a PDF into a new (Word or other software) document and reformat it according to your liking. The Text Select tool is straightforward to use for letters, policies, and other one-column documents. Use the Column Select tool for text in multicolumn PDF documents like newsletters and brochures. This tool takes some practice - you must select, copy, and paste columns out of the PDF one at a time. Here's how. Choosing the nested Column Select tool in Acrobat Reader Selecting columns in Acrobat with the Column Select tool First select the Column Select Tool located in the Acrobat menu bar across the top of the screen. It's nested under the Text Select Tool which has a letter "T" on it. Use the small down arrow just to the right of the "T" to drop the menu down so you can choose the nested Column Select tool. Starting with your mouse above the top left of the column you want to copy, click your mouse button and drag down and to the right diagonally so as to draw a long, narrow rectangle around the text column. The column is highlighted as you release the mouse button. Choose Edit > Copy to place the text into your computer's clipboard. Switch to your new text document where you want to place the text, and choose Edit > Paste. Other Tips: Search Engine PDF Conversion. If the PDF you want to copy from is publicly available on the Internet, type its Web address into Google.com or another search engine that offers a View as HTML feature. The PDF is converted to a Web page from which you can easily copy. Scanned Text Won't Work. PDFs derived from scanned paper pages will not yield selectable text as these PDFs were created from an image, rather than from the original typing. Many of the VA policies online are scanned from paper documents. Back to Tip of the Month

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