Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Processing Information Pasted from a PDF File.

Processing Information Pasted from a PDF File

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 24, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Zach is constantly pasting quotes from PDF files into the body of his Word documents. He'd like to have a macro specifically for pasting from PDF that pastes without any formatting and automatically removes the paragraph breaks that are at the end of each line of the pasted text.

It is relatively easy to work with text in this manner in a macro. All you need to do is move the information from the Clipboard to a string variable. Once it is in the variable, there is no longer any formatting associated with the text and you can search for and replace the paragraph breaks. The following macro performs both steps:

Sub PastePDFClean()
    Dim MyData As DataObject
    Dim sTextIn As String
    Dim x As Integer
    Dim y As Integer

    Set MyData = New DataObject
    MyData.GetFromClipboard
    sTextIn = MyData.GetText

    x = InStr(sTextIn, vbCr)
    y = 1
    While x > 0
        sTextIn = Left(sTextIn, x - 1) & Mid(sTextIn, x + 1)
        y = x + 1
        x = InStr(y, sTextIn, vbCr)
    Wend

    Selection.TypeText sTextIn
    Set MyData = Nothing
End Sub

Remember; the macro works on whatever is in the Clipboard. So, in order to run the macro properly on a PDF selection, you need to copy the selection to the Clipboard and switch to your Word document before you run the macro.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (583) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Processing Information Pasted from a PDF File.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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