Suppose you want to combine a couple of pages from one document, a table from another, and a block of text from another. You could go to the source documents and programs and rebuild the content, import different formats from document to document, and export a PDF file. Or you could try combining the content in Acrobat, which is often the more efficient approach.
Use the Select tool (located on the Select & Zoom toolbar) to select text, images, and tables, and to perform object-specific actions available from the tool’s pop-up menu of options. Select is an intelligent tool that behaves differently depending on what you’re selecting on a document. The more you click, the more you select:
- Double-click a word to select it.
- Triple-click to select a line of text.
- Quadruple-click to select all the text on a page.
- Press Shift and the left-arrow key or right-arrow key to add text one letter at a time.
- Press Shift-Ctrl (Mac: Shift-Command) and the right-arrow key to add text one word at a time.
NOTE
Don’t confuse the Select tool on the Select & Zoom toolbar with the Select Object tool on the Advanced Editing toolbar. The Select Object tool selects items such as links and form fields.
- Click the Select tool on the Select & Zoom toolbar and then click-and-drag over some of the text you want to select. The text is highlighted in the document.
- Hold the pointer over the selected text for a couple of seconds until the Select Text icon appears. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) to display the context menu, listing options that you can choose depending on the content selected.
If you hover the pointer over a table, the Select Text icon appears. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) to open the shortcut menu. The table-specific options include the following.
- Copy As Table. As its name indicates, this option allows you to copy the table to the clipboard. Open the document into which you want to paste the table, and choose Edit > Paste.
- Save As Table. Name the table in the Save As dialog box that appears when this option is selected, and choose a format.
- Open Table in Spreadsheet. When this option is selected, your spreadsheet application (such as Microsoft Excel) opens and displays the imported table in a new worksheet.
In both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, the tables taken from the PDF document are editable and ready to use.
TIP
If your document is tagged and you merely want to copy-and-paste a table, don’t spend time selecting tools, selecting text, and selecting commands. Instead, open the Tags panel and click the table’s tag. Choose Options > Copy Contents to Clipboard. Then open the document in which you want to use the table and paste the table into place. The pasted table includes its data as well as formatting such as borders, fonts, and so on. How cool!