How to Copy Pictures from a PDF

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA. Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities.

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This wikiHow teaches you how to copy pictures from a PDF. You can use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program to copy the image if the PDF was created from a text document on a computer; if the PDF was scanned into the computer from a physical document or it has copy protection, however, you'll only be able to take a screenshot of the image.

Extracting Images from a PDF

To copy an image from a PDF, open a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click the picture in the PDF, and then click Copy at the top. You can then paste it wherever you'd like.

Method 1 of 3:

Using Adobe Acrobat Reader

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If you don't have Adobe Reader yet, you can download and install it for free from https://get.adobe.com/reader/. This software works for both Mac and Windows computers.

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If Adobe Reader is your default PDF program, just double-click the PDF file that you want to open to open it in Acrobat Reader.

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Click to select the picture in the PDF. By default, the Selection tool should be active. If not, you can find this tool above the document page. It looks like a blue mouse cursor.

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You can also click Copy from the Edit tab. [1] X Research source

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Taking a Screenshot on Windows

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Open the PDF. This method will take a screenshot of your PDF picture using the default screenshot tools on your Windows computer.

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Make sure you can easily see and select the corners of the PDF image in the background.

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\n"> Click the Mode tab. You'll see this in the top left of the application window. A menu will dropdown.

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Click Rectangular Snip . This will let you select the outline of the picture and screenshot that instead of the entire screen.

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\n"> Click the New tab. Your screen will grey out and your cursor will look like cross-hairs.

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\n"> Click and drag the mouse over the picture in the PDF.

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Press Ctrl + S and follow the on-screen prompts to save your screenshot. This saves your screenshot as an image file..

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Taking a Screenshot on Mac

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Open the PDF. This method will take a screenshot of your PDF picture using the default screenshot tools on your Mac computer.

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Make sure you can easily see and select the corners of the PDF image in the background.

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\n"> Click the File tab. You'll see this along the top of your screen.

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\n"> Hover over Take Screen Shot . A menu will pop up to the right.

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\n"> Click From Selection . Your screen will grey out and your cursor will look like crosshairs.

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\n"> Click and drag the mouse over the picture in the PDF.

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Press Ctrl + S and follow the on-screen prompts to save your screenshot. This saves your screenshot as an image file.

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