GeneralCan't copy-paste text from pdfs make with LaTeX

LaTeX specific issues not fitting into one of the other forums of this category.
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apecar
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:04 pm

Can't copy-paste text from pdfs make with LaTeX

Post by apecar »

Hi,

I have written my thesis in LaTeX, but my advisor has decided that he needs to be able to copy-paste sections from it into Word. I found that when I make a pdf with LaTeX, some characters (such as two f's in a row) cannot be copied from Acrobat - > Word. (They get replaced with underscores.) Does anyone know a workaround to the problem?

(I assume that this is universal, but I can provide a sample file if needed)

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Stefan Kottwitz
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Posts: 10335
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm

Can't copy-paste text from pdfs make with LaTeX

Post by Stefan Kottwitz »

Hi apecar,

in case the problems are caused only by ligatures, like ff that you mentioned, you may disable ligatures. You could use the microtype, pdftex 1.30 or higher required, see documentation 8 Disabling Ligatures.

Stefan
apecar
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Can't copy-paste text from pdfs make with LaTeX

Post by apecar »

Great! This works wonderfully. Hopefully it will be simple enough for him...

Still, I'm surprised that Acrobat isn't able to understand the ligatures (now I know what they're called). Is there a root issue to this, like me not forcing pdflatex to attach the fonts?
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