A clunky workaround is to use a screen clipper. I believe one comes with Windows Vista and Win 7. Or there is a paid version called Snaggit. You open up the Sony Reader and using the clipper, drag a box around the text you want and click. This takes a screen grab of the particular section and you can drop this into Word. However, it is a "picture", not text. So you cannot amend it and you cannot dump it into many programs e.g. notes in a Bible Reader (such as OliveTree) for example.

But it does get your highlights out.

Kindle works much better. After you highlight and sync, you can go to Kindle on the web and there are your quotes. You can cut these out in Text format and put them into Word. But there are restrictions with each book. I do not know the exact amount you can highlight and have it show upm on the web. But if it stops, just delete some of the earlier one (after copying the text of course). I do not know if there is an overall limit - even after deleting highlights.

You can copy out of Nook using the NookStudy PC app. Highlight in Nook, sync to NookStudy and then copy out in text and drop to Word. Again there is a limit depending on the book being read. Not sure of that limit. But You can copy an entire page for example - but how much copying in total? Don't know.

This is my current dilemma. The Kindle gives me the best "cut and paste" option, but the Nook and Sony give me Google Books (so I can swap to another eReader if I choose and not have to re-purchase my books in a new format), while the Sony gives me the ability to make hand written annotations.

Oh, the choices.....