ศาลาชุมนุม

[John]

Hi,

An ongoing frustration for me has been the inability to copy Thai text from a PDF file (using Acrobat Reader) and paste to a Word document. The text I am copying has both English and Thai. The English pastes fine but the Thai comes out as symbols (i.e. "Aπ—s ◊O￢OAaπ oŸa‡￠’￢ πAπ—s ◊O￢")

Anyone have a solution?

John

[David and Bui]

Let me try:

มีผู้แนะนำ สั่งสอน ที่ปรึกษา เพื่อนที่คบหา
และบุคคลผู้แวดล้อมที่ดี, ความรู้จักเลือกเสวนาบุคคล

กัลยาณมิตตตา (ความมีกัลยาณมิตร คือ มีผู้แนะนำ สั่งสอน ที่ปรึกษา เพื่อนที่คบหา
และบุคคลผู้แวดล้อมที่ดี, ความรู้จักเลือกเสวนาบุคคล หรือเข้าร่วมหมู่กับท่านผู้ทรงคุณทรง
ปัญญามีความสามาFรถ ซึ่งจะช่วยแวดล้อม สนับสนุน ชักจูง ชี้ช่องทาง เป็นแบบอย่าง ตลอด
จนเป็นเครื่องอุดหนุนเกื้อกูลแก่กัน ให้ดำ เนินก้าวหน้าไปด้วยดี ในการศึกษาอบรม การครอง
ชีวิต การประกอบกิจการ และธรรมปฏิบัติ, สิ่งแวดล้อมทางสังคมที่ดี — Kalyànฺamittatà:
having good friends; good company; friendship with the lovely; favourable social
environment) ข้อนี้เป็น องค์ประกอบภายนอก (external factor; environmental factor)

[David and Bui]

The first sentence above is from pdf directly to Firefox. The second was from pdf to Word 2007 to Firefox. Both are now visible in the previous post. Can you see the Thai?

[John]

David,

I can see the text you posted in Thai.

Do you think there is there a Windows XP setting that is messing me up?

John

[David and Bui]

Many's the slip between cup and lip.

Lot's of bad things can happen in converting one format to another. Here are some of what I can guess at:

1. The pdf Thai sentence that you are trying to port from pdf to Word is only a picture, not text. If the Thai works fine in Word, then this is not the problem.

2. Try to paste the pdf-copied text into notepad and save as a text file. If the Thai looks o.k. then Word might be the problem.

3. In Word, do you have any other difficulties with Thai? In Word's "Font" function, can you read the Thai script setup in the "complex script" function? There should be a "preview box" below the complex script area which shows you a sample. Can you read the Thai in that context?

4. Try copying and pasting directly from pdf to Internet Explorer or Firefox and see if the Thai comes out correctly. If so, the problem would seem isolated to Word.

Good luck.

[John]

David,

1. Is it possible that the PDF text is a "picture" and not actual text to protect a copyright?

2. Copying into other programs hasn't helped.

3. Word and other Microsoft products handle the Thai script just fine. I have many documents I have produced in Thai.

4. I don't know how to paste into Firefox or IE unless you are talking about pasteing into a lookup box.

Do you have a PDF file you could refer me to or sent me? Maybe my source file is the issue.

Thanks,

John

[David and Bui]

John, see PM.

[John]

David,

Thank you so much for your assistance. The PDF text you sent cuts and pastes fine. The Thai text I am using must be copy protected.

John

[glotcha]

I had had this problem after quite a bit of trying I found this post that explains exactly why it's not possible to copy and paste thai characters from certain PDF files.

https://superuser.com/questions/92615/c ... f-document

"Normal PDF documents containing Unicode text do not store the text as characters - but as references to the glyphs (letter shapes) in the fonts used."

So the strange characters you see when copying are not some kind of text encoding, as I originally suspected, but a code internal to the pdf document which tell the reader which character to display. If the embedded fonts do not have "translate to unicode" support, it is not possible for the user to copy the thai characters seen on the screen.