Re: Electronic Distribution of Copyrighted User Guides

On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Mike Bradley <mike[_at_]sphinx.com> wrote:
>
> I checked with a couple of programmers. They say PDF files are binary
> files from which text cannot be extracted, so it would seem that PDF is
> effective in preventing the creation of derivative works by extracting
> text.

Try the following under Windows95:

1. Open a PDF file in the Acrobat reader.
2. Click the "Text Selection Tool" icon (it's the one with the lowercase "abc" in the dotted-line box).
3. Type CTRL-A to Select All, then CTRL-C to copy.
4. Change to your favorite word processor (I use Word), select a new document, and type CTRL-V to paste.
5. Go show the result to your programmer friends and say "are you sure?"

-- 
Terry Carroll       | "Report of the Committee On Governmental Affairs,
Santa Clara, CA     | United States Senate, To Accompany S. 1364, An Act To
carroll[_at_]tjc.com     | Eliminate Unnecessary and Wasteful Federal Reports."
Modell delendus est |  - Title of U.S. Senate Report 105-187, May 11, 1998