SumatraPDF with KernelEx, copying text?

[diamant]

I want possibly replace my old Adobe Acrobat Reader as standard *.pdf-reader by any version of SumatraPDF. The reason is that SumatraPDF reads "newer" *.pdf-files, and it has an similarly (good) rendering quality as Adobe, and it's small and fast (contrary to new Adobe versions (and Foxit?). With KernelEx even newer versoins of SumatraPDF seem to work.

But there is one problem (which Adobe Reader doesn't has):

I can not properly copy text from any *.pdf-document to the Windows clipboard. If I copy text by CTRL+c or by right-clicking into the *.pdf-file and select "copy", so the option "insert" is greyed out (almost[*]) everywhere where I want to insert the text, especially into SumatraPDF's own search funktion.

It's the same problem with severel SumatraPDF versions, including the newest 1.8.

[*] Surprisingly I can insert the copied text into any box within Firefox! But that seems to be the only program where I can insert copied text from SumatraPDF.

Has anybody got SumatraPDF on his/her Win98SE system? And could you tell me please whether the copying of text works?

[loblo]

Sumatra seems to copy text only in unicode format (check it out with Nirsoft's insideclipboard for example) and that's the reason you are having those issues.

You can paste that only in certain text editors such as Akelpad (which is my default text editor btw) .

Edited October 18, 2011 by loblo

[diamant]

You can paste that only in certain text editors such as Akelpad (which is my default text editor btw) .

I have found out that the copied text ist also "insertable" into MS Word(!) and into Mozilla Thunderbird.

Unfortunately it ist not insertable into the search function SumatraPDF itself .

This is a comfortable feature in Adobe Reader: Copy a piece of text (from any opened *.pdf-file), insert it into search-function and search for further occurences of the selectet text.

Is there any way to copy text from SumatraPDF (from opened *.pdf-file) into SumatraPDF (search function)?

Is it maybe needed to modify Win98SE or its clipboard?

[loblo]

This is a comfortable feature in Adobe Reader: Copy a piece of text (from any opened *.pdf-file), insert it into search-function and search for further occurences of the selectet text.

It probably works like that on SumatraPDF's intended 2K and above platforms and I guess that the search input field relies on some Microsoft library, which on 98/ME won't recognize unicode.

Is there any way to copy text from SumatraPDF (from opened *.pdf-file) into SumatraPDF (search function)?

Is it maybe needed to modify Win98SE or its clipboard?

I am afraid the only things you can do if you don't wan't to type is either paste the text copied in Sumatra in whatever application that accepts it and then copy it from there to then paste in Sumatra's search field or, convert the data in the clipboard with the utility linked below.

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-p/clipboard/article.php/c3009

There is perhaps an utilty that sits in the tray and does that conversion automatically which would avoid any of the extra user interaction both solutions above require but I couldn't find one with a quick google look-up.

Edit: actually there is an auto-convert option in the utility I linked above so you could run it minimized at startup and then you could copy/paste from/to Sumatra as if normal anytime.

Edited October 18, 2011 by loblo

[jaclaz]

See if this:

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-p/clipboard/article.php/c3009

or this:

http://www.informatics-consulting.ch/software/cbtext.htm

can do.

Or see if you can do something with AutoHotKey:

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic8397.html

There is this one also, but needs .Net

http://www.pastecopy.net/

jaclaz

[diamant]

Your suggestions seem to work (OK, I tested only the tool at codeguru). But then I have to do even more "user interaction" if I want simly copy text from SumatraPDF to its own search-field,... as if I would type the searched text manually. Maybe I could get the tools to work by Autostart at each boot time, but that's overkill in my opinion (only for the requested purpose).

I thought I could maybe "replace" the Win98SE clipboard by a modified version (like the WinXP clipboard). But this doesn't seem to suffice.

In which format does Adobe Reader copy text; plaintext? Maybe it's possible to "hack" the copy-function of SumatraPDF so that it does no longer uses UTF8-format?!

[jaclaz]

See if this works:

http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/

Would this help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Layer_for_Unicode

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=4237

jaclaz

[diamant]

See if this works:

http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/

This doesn't seem to work. I think I know why:

[puretext homepage]

PureText is basically equivalent to opening Notepad, doing a PASTE, followed by a SELECT-ALL, and then a COPY

[/puretext homepage]

And I can not paste text manually into Notepad copied from SumatraPDF.

Would this help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Layer_for_Unicode

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=4237

I already have unicows.dll on my computer. It's version 1.1.3790.0. Probably this file has nothing to do with text formatting .