Copy and paste from nook to PC? DRM strip?

[ynot]

Hi,

Is it possible to copy and paste text from an epub book that is on a nook to a PC?

I downloaded nook for PC which synced the two but I don't think (I tried) I can copy and paste from nook files to my PC,

Not that anyone would ever do it, but if DRM were stripped from a nook book, would that make it possible?

Could you simply go into nook PC, highlight then copy and past a paragraph into a Word file?

Thanks

[robert23]

If it is a book purchased from B&N you can download it again without having to repurchase it, just use the same account to authorize the PC version.

[ATDrake]

Using the NookStudy app, you can copy and paste text from your Nook books to an external text editor, as long as the publisher hasn't limited things.

[ynot]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Using the NookStudy app, you can copy and paste text from your Nook books to an external text editor, as long as the publisher hasn't limited things.

OK, but what if the publisher has restricted this via DRM?

Would it be possibleto copy and paste if the DRM was stripped from the book?

I mean it's DRM that prevents it in the first place, right?

[ynot]

Originally Posted by robert23

If it is a book purchased from B&N you can download it again without having to repurchase it, just use the same account to authorize the PC version.

The reason I want to know this is for study purposes.

I'm talking about selecting a few paragraphs from one book and copying and pasting the paragraphs to a (new) Word file, for example.

Then maybe selecting a few paragraphs from a different book, and copying and pasting the paragraphs to a the same Word file.

So what I'm talking about is copying and pasting things from different books and putting all the information in one Word file I created myself.

[VicLavigne]

I tried copying from the Nook for PC program, and I believe the program itself restricts against copying.

If you remove the DRM, copying and pasting from the ebook is certainly possible. Heck, you could use a program like Calibre to convert the book to an RTF file, then open with Word directly..... but only if DRM is removed.

Vic

[ppatt]

It's a little involved but better than re-typing the passages you'd like to share yourself:

1. with the passage you'd like to copy showing in Nook for PC, while holding down ALT key press the PtrScn key. This will add the graphic for the entire screen into your copy buffer.

2. open the Paint app that's present on all windows machines

3. in paint while holding down the Ctrl key press the "V" key to paste the screen image into paint

4. Using Paint's crop and erase functions whittle the screen image down to the smallest image containing only the desired passage. Save the resulting image.

5. Go to this website or another providing similar function:

http://www.onlineocr.net/

6. use that site to convert the image to text or word then edit the result text file as needed.

Naturally you have to do this multiple times when a passage is split across one or more pages. Still it's easier than typing it all in yourself. There are also opportunities for partially automating this process by some motivated tech-savvy person.

B&N or publishers need not fear because it would be impractical to copy an entire book this way. I have been frustrated in the past when passages I'd like to share are slightly longer than the unnelievably small amount of text that B&N will allow you to post or email.

[RAH]

As Vic says, once DRM has been removed, you can do just about anything to the book's text using Calibre or Sigil. You could even just rename it to filetype .zip and use Windows Explorer or other such unzip tools to extract all the components, etc, etc. An epub is really just a zip archive of containing HTML for the text, images, and a few additional control files (metadata, etc).

For minor text extraction, the screen snapshot plus OCR procedure ppatt gave might be somewhat easier (or if you are worried about removing the DRM, which we don't do, of course).