Fixing text that was copy-pasted from a PDF
Copying text out of a PDF gives you hard line breaks, hyphenated words and phantom spaces. The fix is mechanical, so a routine works better than judgment.
The routine
- Paste the text into the Article Formatter.
- Keep every cleanup rule on for a first pass, then switch off quote normalization if the document quotes code.
- Compare the preview with the source: headings and list items should survive, and hyphens at line ends should be checked by hand.
- Copy the formatted text and finish in your editor.
What still needs a human
Word breaks inside hyphenated compounds, table rows and footnotes are judgement calls. Formatting tools can normalize them but cannot know which line break was intentional.
