Q&A for How to Copy and Paste PDF Content Into a New File

Most PDF programs will allow you to combine documents, including Adobe and CutePDF. One of the easier ways, if you don't have any PDF software, is to print out the PDFs and scan them back as one PDF.

Yes, it is possible to cut and paste text from part or all of a PDF document. The article above explains several different methods for doing this, depending on which approach is easiest for you (Adobe Reader, Google Docs or transforming the PDF into Word). You can also try selecting the text area with your mouse, right clicking and using the Copy feature to copy, then Paste to paste into your new document.

For help with converting your PDF into a Word document, check out the wikiHow How to Convert a PDF to a Word Document. For inserting a PDF into a Word document, it is best to have the latest Word program (Word 2019), as it is more likely to be successful without having to make tweaks. Open the Insert tab, click Object tool, select Create on the File tab, click Browse to open the dialog box, then locate the PDF to be inserted. Then, click Insert and finish with OK. If the PDF does not insert properly, you’ll need to do some troubleshooting based on which version of Word and operating system you're using.

If you're able to highlight text, but can't copy it, the PDF is likely secured. If you're using Adobe Reader, you'll be able to see "(SECURED)" in the title bar. You'll need to run the secured PDF file through an optical character recognition (OCR) program. Google Drive includes one for free, so upload the PDF to your Drive account. Once uploaded, right-click it, select "Open with," then click "Google Docs." This will scan and convert the protected PDF into text your can copy.

Try splitting the document into two separate PDFs.

Open a Text edit document and paste the copied PDF into it, then copy the RTF document straight into your Word doc. You could try different types of format stripping, cut and paste, etc. but nothing else seems to work like this.