Working with Selected Text
It is easy to select text from the original PDF document, and perform different tasks with it. With text extraction, you can copy text from the original PDF document into the clipboard. You can also highlight or mark-up the selected text, search for it on the internet, or perform custom tasks with the text.
Extracting Text
To select text from the original PDF document (not from annotations), select Tool 
Extract Text. Select a region on the current page, that contains text. By default, the Extract text line by line setting will be active. When you switch to Extract text within a rectangle, you can select a rectangular area on the current page. This setting can be helpful to copy text from tables and columns.
 | Because PDF is a print document format, not a word processing format, text extraction has its limitations. In some cases, PDF Annotator will not be able to find any text, or to extract text correctly. |
Copying Extracted Text to the Clipboard
After selecting an area for text extraction, you can copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard using the Edit Copy command.
Alternatively, you can right click on the selection and select Preview from the context menu. The text found in the original document will be displayed and can be modified or corrected. Select Copy to clipboard to copy the text to the Windows clipboard and paste it back into PDF Annotator or any other application. The Preview window includes an additional Tools button with a command to Remove line breaks from the text displayed above.
Highlighting Selected Text
The quickest way to highlight text is to use the Extract Text tool like described above. Select Highlight from the toolbar right above the document (or right click for a context menu) and pick one of the predefined colors, or select Current Marker to use the color that currently set for the Marker tool.
Underline or Strike Out Selected Text
A fast way to underline or strike out text is to use the Extract Text tool like described above. Select Underline or Strikeout from the toolbar right above the document (or right click for a context menu) and pick one of the predefined colors, or select Current Pen to use the color that currently set for the Pen tool.
Creating Bookmarks
A quick way to create a Bookmark from the text you selected is to click the Create Bookmark option. This will prefill the bookmark caption with the text you selected and create a bookmark that will jump exactly to its original position in the document.
Searching for Selected Text on the Internet
Another option to work with selected text is to submit it right to an internet search engine, to research it. Click Search (Google) or Wikipedia on the context menu to do so. If you prefer a different search engine, you can set up your own Extract Text Commands.
Translating Selected Text
Similar to the Search option, you can click Translate (Google) on the context menu to submit the text from the PDF to an online translation service. To you a different translation service, define your own Extract Text Commands.
Editing Selected Text in Notepad
By clicking Notepad on the context menu, you can open the Windows text editor to work on the text you selected. The text found in your PDF will be saved to a temporary file and PDF Annotator will open this file in Notepad. This is primarily an example use case for the ability to send selected text to third party applications using Extract Text Commands.
See also
