# Copying LaTeX from a PDF

Is there a way to copy from a PDF to a LaTeX document? Whenever I do it, it copies in with weird symbols in the place of LaTeX commands for example:

$$f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$$


copies in as

f : R ! R;

I did a quick search and I couldn't really find anything (some sort of PDF to LaTeX converter that worked well)

Am I missing something obvious or can this not be done (for some reason)?

• You are probably out of luck: see tex.stackexchange.com/questions/8503/…. Your question will probably be closed as a duplicate. Dec 11, 2012 at 18:32
• Are you interested in getting useful symbols or do you really want the complete LaTeX code back? Dec 11, 2012 at 18:40
• For instance, if I add \input{glyphtounicode} \pdfgentounicode=1 to the preamble of the document, I get f : R → R. Dec 11, 2012 at 18:46
• @EthanBolker I just found out how to make it paste back as TeX code ;-) Dec 11, 2012 at 19:40
• @hmmmm could you disambiguate whether you want to copy LaTeX from any PDF document or want to be able to make a PDF from which LaTeX can be copied? Dec 11, 2012 at 21:41

Try this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\input{glyphtounicode}
\pdfgentounicode=1
\usepackage{accsupp}

\newcommand\pasteablelatex[1]
{%
\edef\next
{%
\noexpand\BeginAccSupp{method=escape,ActualText=\detokenize{#1}}%
}%
\next#1\EndAccSupp{}%
}

\begin{document}

foo

\pasteablelatex{$$f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$$}

bar

\end{document}

• To be clear, can you confirm that this only works if the person who compiled the PDF used this method? I guess that without that there's no way to do this, isn't there? Dec 11, 2012 at 19:57
• @AndrewStacey Not sure what you mean. It's a method to make PDF paste back LaTeX code. Dec 11, 2012 at 19:59
• I mean that if you give me a PDF without the source code then I can't use your method to recover that source code. But if I as an author want to be kind to readers (assuming that there are some) then I can use this to make my PDF so that copying gives the LaTeX code. Dec 11, 2012 at 20:05
• Exactly. It has to be used when compiling the LaTeX to PDF. Dec 11, 2012 at 20:05
• Is there a way to make all the document pasteable? Dec 11, 2012 at 20:23