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"everyone hates PDFs where you can't reliably select and copy text!" Boy do I. One of my biggest annoyances is receiving an invoice in pdf format, where I can

"everyone hates PDFs where you can't reliably select and copy text!" Boy do I. One of my biggest annoyances is receiving an invoice in pdf format, where I can either not select the text at all, or where you cannot cleanly select text, i.e. when you try to select something it somehow half highlights the line above as well and I am not sure what is on my clipboard, and need to paste temporarily in a text editor, then select what I need ... etc Super nice when the list IBAN numbers for payment in a tiny font size as well. Maybe I should vibecode a little helper. tool to visually select a rectangle and perform OCR and detect IBAN numbers or show a popup with proper text to do my subselect.

13324 5mo ago
Personal lifehack: Use the address bar of your browser to view the clipboard content quickly and to omit any formatting from it.
- cluckindan 5mo ago
  This also conveniently sends it to your search provider, and possibly to the browser vendor for analytics.
  - illusive4 5mo ago
    Depends on your settings.
  - pimlottc 5mo ago
    These days it’s hard to be sure of anywhere you can paste a piece of text and be certain it’s not being sent to a server somewhere.
Steve44 5mo ago
We have a couple of large customers who will only send remittance advices as a PDF, the are several pages and a couple of hundred rows. Apparently their system can not send XLSX or any other format. I've been a happy user of Tabula[1] for a few years and it works really well, for my needs anyway. I just import, auto-detect tables, select "Stream", and then export to a CSV. [1] https://tabula.technology/ https://tabula.technology/ [1] https://github.com/tabulapdf/tabula https://github.com/tabulapdf/tabula
pegasus 5mo ago
For the mac there's TextSniper which does just that.
- mock-possum 5mo ago
  There’s a Power Toys util for windows that does the same - draw a rectangle around the text you want, and it OCRs it to your clipboard.
- seemaze 5mo ago
  On mac, I just do a quick screenshot and use the builtin OCR in Preview to select and copy text all the time.
  - mediumsmart 5mo ago
    Textgrabber does that without needing a screenshot. Found it here on HN, never looked back.
    - throw0101a 5mo ago
      > Textgrabber does that without needing a screenshot. There seems to be a product or two using that name: can you give a URL to the legitimate one?
ezst 5mo ago
> select a rectangle and perform OCR You get that out of the box on an up to date KDE, from the screenshoting application Spectacle.

13324 5mo ago

Personal lifehack: Use the address bar of your browser to view the clipboard content quickly and to omit any formatting from it.

cluckindan 5mo ago
This also conveniently sends it to your search provider, and possibly to the browser vendor for analytics.
- illusive4 5mo ago
  Depends on your settings.
- pimlottc 5mo ago
  These days it’s hard to be sure of anywhere you can paste a piece of text and be certain it’s not being sent to a server somewhere.

Steve44 5mo ago

We have a couple of large customers who will only send remittance advices as a PDF, the are several pages and a couple of hundred rows. Apparently their system can not send XLSX or any other format. I've been a happy user of Tabula[1] for a few years and it works really well, for my needs anyway. I just import, auto-detect tables, select "Stream", and then export to a CSV. [1] https://tabula.technology/ https://tabula.technology/ [1] https://github.com/tabulapdf/tabula https://github.com/tabulapdf/tabula

pegasus 5mo ago

For the mac there's TextSniper which does just that.

mock-possum 5mo ago
There’s a Power Toys util for windows that does the same - draw a rectangle around the text you want, and it OCRs it to your clipboard.
seemaze 5mo ago
On mac, I just do a quick screenshot and use the builtin OCR in Preview to select and copy text all the time.
- mediumsmart 5mo ago
  Textgrabber does that without needing a screenshot. Found it here on HN, never looked back.
  - throw0101a 5mo ago
    > Textgrabber does that without needing a screenshot. There seems to be a product or two using that name: can you give a URL to the legitimate one?

ezst 5mo ago

> select a rectangle and perform OCR You get that out of the box on an up to date KDE, from the screenshoting application Spectacle.