How to Copy Text from PDF without Line Breaks

Oftentimes, when you select and copy the text in PDF documents and paste it into a text editor application like Microsoft Word or OneNote, the lines and paragraphs of text are messed up, and there is ample extra spacing. That’s quite annoying when you want your document text to be properly laid out.

Luckily, on this page, you’ll find 3 easy and practical tricks to copy text from PDF without line breaks, jumping, or any other text line issues. Follow the step-by-step tutorials and get started.

Method 1. Fix PDF Text Line Breaks in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the best-received word-processing tools and is heavily used by office workers. It’s also quite practical when working with PDF documents as it allows you to convert PDF to Word and even save Word as PDF with a password.

If you’re trying to copy the text in PDF and paste it into Microsoft Word, and you encounter extra spacing and line breaks, you can easily resolve the issue using Microsoft Word’s inbuilt symbol-replacing functionality.

The following is the easy trick to remove line breaks in MS Word text copied from PDF.

Step 1. Open your PDF document in any PDF reader, and copy the text you need using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C.

Step 2. Open a new Microsoft Word document, and paste in the copied PDF text using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V.

Step 3. As you can see, there are line breaks and extra spacing. Now use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + H to open the Find and Replace tool in Word.

Step 4. In the Find What box, input the following symbols: ^p. Alternatively, go to More > Special, and select Paragraph Mark.

Step 5. Leave the Replace with box empty, and click the Replace All button.

Step 6. Close the dialog that follows up, and now you’ll see that the extra spacing and line breaks are successfully removed!

Method 2. Copy Text from PDF without Line Breaks Using PDFgear

PDFgear is a free PDF editor with which you can select and copy text from PDF documents with or without losing formatting.

PDFgear allows you to do many things with PDFs such as inserting fillable text boxes, and it’s completely free to use and there will not be any premium version.

Additionally, with the inbuilt OCR tool, you are allowed to extract and copy text from scanned PDFs.

Apart from copying text from PDF documents, you can also directly convert PDF to Microsoft Word, TXT, Excel, and more document formats, without losing formatting.

Step 1. Download, install, and launch PDFgear on your Windows or Mac computer.

Step 2. Click on the Open File button, and import the PDF with the text you want.

Step 3. In the PDF editor workplace, you’ll be in the Select Mode by default. Select the text you need to copy, and click the Copy button from the pop-up dialog.

Step 4. Open a new Microsoft Word document, and paste the copied text using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V.

Step 5. As you can see, the text you copied from PDF using PDFgear doesn’t have unnecessary spacing and line breaks.

Method 3. Copy PDF Text without Line Breaks Online

If you want to copy PDF text without line breaks on mobile phones such as iPhones or Android phones, using a web-based tool to remove line breaks is a good idea.

The best part of these online tools is that you get to access them on both computers and mobile phones, and all they need to work is a web browser application connected to the internet.

Step 1. Open your PDF document in a PDF reader, and copy the text you need.

Step 2. Go to the TextFixer Remove Line Breaks online tool.

Step 3. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V to paste the copied PDF text into the line breaks remover tool.

Step 4. Select whether you want to remove some breaks or all line breaks, and hit the Remove Line Breaks button.

Step 5. Scroll down and you’ll find the text with line breaks removed in the lower box. Click Copy to Clipboard.

Step 6. Lastly, go to Microsoft, OneNote, Notepad, or Excel to paste in the copied PDF text, and it will not have line breaks.

Copy and Paste PDF Text without Formatting Issues

The formatting issues from copied PDF text make the text difficult to read. Fortunately, there are several ways to copy text from a PDF into Word, Notepad, OneNote, and Excel without formatting problems.

• Convert the PDF to a Word document using an online converter, PDFgear, or, Adobe Acrobat.
• Take a screenshot of the desired text in the PDF and then use an image-to-text conversion tool to extract the text, which can then be pasted into a Word document.
• Insert the PDF into OneNote and then copy the text from there.
• The Adobe Acrobat Snapshot tool may be used to select and copy text without formatting issues.
• The PDFgear PDF editors can provide users with a “text mode” or “edit text” tool that enables easy copying and pasting without formatting issues.

FAQs

Why do line breaks occur when copying text from a PDF?

Line breaks occur because the text in a PDF document is often formatted to fit specific page dimensions, and these formats are carried over when the text is copied and pasted.

How can I preserve line breaks in copied text from a PDF?

To preserve line breaks when copying text from a PDF, use a text editor that preserves the text’s formatting, such as Microsoft Word. Paste the text into Word, and then select “Keep Source Formatting” to preserve line breaks and other formatting.

How can I remove hyphens and other special characters from copied text in a PDF?

To remove hyphens and other special characters when copying text from a PDF, use a text editor with a find-and-replace function, such as Microsoft Word. Find the special characters you want to remove, and then replace them with the characters of your choice.

How to copy text from PDF to Excel without line breaks?

To copy text from a PDF file and paste it into an Excel worksheet without causing line breaks and other formatting issues, you need to open the PDF in the PDF reader software PDFgear. Select and copy the text in PDF to get the Unicode text, and paste it into the Excel spreadsheet.

Conclusion

All in all, this page introduced several practical methods for you to copy text from PDF without line breaks, to easily work with your PDF documents without formatting issues. These methods allow you to deal with text on both computer and mobile phones, so whatever device you’re on, there’s a solution for you.