Can't Copy Text From a PDF? Here's Why and How to Fix It

Step 1: Figure out which problem you have

What happens	Cause	Jump to
Nothing highlights, or the whole page highlights like a picture	Scanned (image) PDF	Fix 1
Text highlights but Copy is greyed out	Copy restriction	Fix 2
Copy works but pastes as ÿþ▯▯ or random symbols	Missing Unicode/font mapping	Fix 3
Copy works but the text order is jumbled	Complex layout/columns	Fix 4

Fix 1: Scanned PDF — run OCR

The page is a photo, so there’s no text to copy yet.

• Google Drive (free): upload > right-click > Open with Google Docs. The text appears below the image.
• Microsoft Word: File > Open the PDF. Word runs OCR.
• Mac/iPhone Live Text: in Preview (macOS 13+) you can often select text in scans directly.
• Screenshot trick: screenshot the part you need, then use Live Text (Apple), Google Lens (Android/Chrome) or Windows Snipping Tool’s Text actions.

More: Make a scanned PDF searchable.

Fix 2: Copying is restricted

The author set a permissions password. If you’re allowed to use the content:

• Open the PDF in Google Chrome and choose Print > Save as PDF. The new file often has no restrictions.
• Or ask the author for an unrestricted copy.

See How to remove a PDF password. Respect copyright and your organisation’s rules.

Fix 3: Text pastes as gibberish

The PDF was made without a “ToUnicode” map, so the computer draws the right shapes but doesn’t know which letters they are. The fix is to treat it like a scan and OCR it: Google Docs, Word or the screenshot method above.

Fix 4: Jumbled order or broken lines

• Paste into Word with Keep Text Only, then clean up line breaks.
• For tables, try converting the PDF to Word or Excel, which rebuilds structure.