While these days it’s easy enough to get data from programs like Excel and Word into a PDF file, sometimes it’s just a little bit difficult to get it back out again.
Often all I need is a picture from a PDF file that I can drop into a Word document add a signature or some text, and then re-bundle it as a PDF and distribute.
Not everyone sets up PDF files so that they can be edited and in most cases I’ll need to do the editing myself – so for that I use Word as I can drop in a signature or a text box really easily.
The problem then becomes how do you get the data out of the PDF and into Word. Luckily the Adobe Acrobat Reader has a tool for this built in.
From the menu select Tools > Select & Zoom > Snapshot Tool. Now position yourself in the file where you want to grab the data from and drag over the area to capture.
A picture of the area is captured to the Windows clipboard which you can now paste into another program such as a Word document. It’s not the world’s prettiest solution but it is quick and easy and that works for me.
Thats great unless you have to modify what you just pasted into Word.