Level 1

9 points

Text selection in Preview doesn't work in Catalina

I updated my new MacBook Air to Catalina. Now I can't use the text edit tool in Preview with documents that have been created with Libre Office before the update. If I select text from a pdf made with Libre Office, and then paste it to any text processing program, it changes into numbers and special characters - no matter if I use "unformatted" or "formatted" pasting.

I updated my Libre Office, and exported text from a document created after that. That worked just fine in Preview. But the old ones are a serious problem. I have dozens of documents that have been created with Libre Office before the updates and then exported as pdf's, and now I can't copy their texts but have to rewrite each word. I will be 100 before I get my PhD done...

Any suggestions?

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 7, 2020 3:49 AM

Similar questions

26 replies

Jan 13, 2020 4:11 AM in response to sanna114

I will test your file in an older mac running High Sierra. I will let you know how that goes.

sanna114 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2020 4:12 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Cool, thank you!

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Jan 13, 2020 4:12 AM in response to sanna114

This could be why…

Encoding software: Mac OS X 10.6.8 Quartz PDFContext

sanna114 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2020 4:43 AM in response to LD150

Thank you, Peter. So far, the Libre Office documents have caused no problems, it's these old Open Office pdf's that don't function properly.

sanna114 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2020 4:48 AM in response to dialabrain

Thank you, this is good to know!

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Jan 13, 2020 4:49 AM in response to sanna114

You're welcome. The conversion may not be perfect, but it will save you lots of typing.

sanna114 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2020 10:27 AM in response to dialabrain

♡

sanna114 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 13, 2020 10:30 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

It's funny that I only run into it now. But at least now I know what to do when I have to get long quotations from the documents. Thank you everyone for working on this!!!

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Jan 13, 2020 10:31 AM in response to sanna114

sanna114 wrote:

♡

😎

LD150

Level 10

101,267 points

Jan 13, 2020 6:13 AM in response to sanna114

I still think you have encrypted them on export.

Dont forget pdf is not intended to be the master version if your work. That should be a .doc or similar. Pdf are only for distribution (hence the d) or publication to protect your work. The OpenOffice seems to have done that well.

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Jan 13, 2020 6:34 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luckily they will open in Google Docs and can copy and paste normally, along with saving to different formats.

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Text selection in Preview doesn't work in Catalina