On 4/18/25 5:30 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
On 4/17/25 9:45 PM, David Wright wrote:
On Thu 17 Apr 2025 at 14:24:35 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
On 4/16/25 8:35 AM, David Wright wrote:
Ironically, a copy/paste from xpdf seems to do a better job
than -layout at preserving the columns widths over the page break.
(Perhaps the text at the bottom of the second page messes with
-layout.)
I liked the text file you attached. Was that the default output of
xpdf itself? [Intend to experiment with it this weekend.]
In as much as I carried out the actions below, and the
attached text was what accumulated in the editor's buffer.
(Two pages of the report, so copy, paste, copy, paste.)
Someone recalled you saying xpdf was your default PDF viewer.
Correct. In mc, if I press Return (≡Open) when the cursor is on
a PDF, it opens in xpdf. If I press F3 (≡View), then it opens
in zathura. F4 (≡Edit) can toggle between the raw text and a
hex representation thereof. (I configured these choices in mc.)
A quick read of https://midnight-commander.org/ suggests that the
combination of xpdf *and* mc plays a significant role in your success.
As mc is in the Debian repository, I've just installed it.
How can I exactly duplicate your default mc settings?
Is there perhaps a configuration file?
[ I'll continue with Caja for my routine usage. ]
My interpretation after a quick read turned out to be a "red herring".
All that is needed is xpdf itself - see below.
So I installed it from the Debian repository via Synaptic.
[ I'm running Debian 12.8 with MATE 2.53.20 desktop. ]
In Caja I right click on TFP2021.pdf & choose open with xpdf.
So far so good ;)
I navigate to Table A4.14 without problem.
No problem selecting a rectangular area of interest.
Yes, it should create a black (?inverse) rectangle over the area.
BUT how do I copy it somewhere useful?
I can either press the middle (paste) mouse button, or I can
press Shift-Insert. The latter may be a default key combination
as I don't immediately see where it's configured. DEs might
behave differently, especially when they try to ape Windows;
so you might try ^V.
I'll try after I post this.
So, where to press those keys: in your favourite editor's buffer.
Don't paste into a shell/command line by accident (unless you've
got bracketed-paste set: then it doesn't matter).
Whether anything is pasted depends on there being some text in the
selection buffer. Not all PDFs will let you copy stuff out like that.
Also bear in mind that some PDF pages that look like text may
actually be scanned images.
The PDF I'm working with is not a scanned image or otherwise obscured.
With xpdf, the contents of the rectangle is copied, and I've always
found the boundaries quite precise.
LARGE snip
The mechanical steps I followed for my test:
1. open PDF with xpdf
2. navigate to first desired page
3. highlight the desired data my pressing/holding left mouse button
4. save desired data by clicking middle mouse button
5. open destination document in notepad
6. select desired insertion point with left mouse button
7. insert by clicking middle mouse button
Repeat 2-7 as required.
Do desired cosmetic cleanup.
After seeing the result I begin to doubt the need for creating a csv
file for my end use.
