[Gllug] PDFs

[Richard Turner]

> Yes, but that'll do the whole document. Not too useful if you only
want
> to copy and paste a sentence or two. Note that it's provably
impossible
> to provide copy and paste from a PDF document 100% of the time. Adobe
does
> it by making certain assumptions about how the page is contructed,
which
> generally hold true if you use Acrobat Writer, and indeed most other
means
> of creating a PDF file. But it's relatively easy to create a PDF file
from
> which you can't copy and paste. Indeed, I'm surprised no one's written
a
> tool to do it automatically, for those paranoid copyright holders that
> would remove our fair use rights...
> 
> Tet

Or, for example, when I needed to send an employment reference by email
during the postal strike the other day and I didn't want anyone to be
able to copy and paste the text into Word, alter it and pass it off as
the original.  Using a PDF with copy-n-paste disabled isn't a full-proof
method by any means, but it was a quick solution that the average
Windows user wouldn't have been able to crack.

Richard.
--
"Racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning..."


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