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Authors may have valid reasons applying security settings to PDF documents;
the blanket generalization NOT to apply them overlooks this possibility.
The fundamental issue is that of overriding the author's intended
protection. It's probably a good idea to ask the author for an unprotected
version.
PDFs have many possibilities, which vary, beginning in Acrobat 5, according
to the encryption applied (40-bit, for compatibility with Acrobat 4,
128-bit, for compatibility with Acrobat 5.)
The suggestion to print and scan is not possible if the document is also set
to prevent printing.
However, if printing is denied, it's still possible to capture the screen
and paste the captured image into a "to-do" list document, or process the
image further into editable text.
Regards,
Peter Gold
_________________________________________________________________________
KnowHow ProServices division of HighSoft, Inc. www.knowhowpro.com Adobe
Certified Expert: FrameMaker 7, FrameMaker+SGML Authoring, Acrobat 5,
InDesign 2 WebWorks Professional Certified trainer Voice: 660-691-0701
Toll-free outside S. F. Bay Area: 800-795-6066 FAX: 650-691-0995
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: I. Ljaljicic
>> Sent: 24 April 2003 20:33
>>
>
>> My approach to doing this has generally been to cut
>> and paste everything i needed into a Microsoft Word
>> document and just print that in a nice neat lil
>> package of stuff i gotta do. It could be just that im
>> ignorant of PDF files, but in my experience you cant
>> cut and paste anything from a PDF file, and this is
>> extremely annoying for me because I would rather not
>> sit there and print a 400 page manual for 2 or 3 pages
>> of stuff that I needed.
>
> When you create a PDF, you can edit the security settings to prevent cutting
> and pasting. I find this a bit paranoid and I never do this when I'm
> creating PDFs myself.
>
> I once received a call from a co-worker to ask "how do I copy and paste from
> this PDF" (an external one). He found it hard to believe that it was not
> possible for this particular file. For a moment I think he wondered how this
> so-called technical writer was unable to do something so basic as
> cut-and-paste :-o
[snipped]
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