I am a technical translator of several languages, specializing in
Chem. Eng.  I often need to include complex formulas, graphics,
equations, etc., from the foreign documents into my Word2000 final
translations.  My operating system is Window 98 SE.  Up to now, I've
been "cutting and pasting" the material with the use of a Daige
adhesive wax machine -- I know, pretty archaic, right?  I have an HP
ScanJet Scanner with an automatic document feeder, HP PrecisionScan
Pro 2.0, and Adobe Acrobat 5.0 -- but am not very skilled in their
use.  My computer skills are sort of "mid-level".

In general, I would like to know how to strip the various scanned
"images" I need into my documents (see next paragraph).  I scan whole
foreign documents directly into AA 5.0 by using File, Import, and
Scan, then when the plug-in is displayed, using black and white bitmap
(output type) and "200" as the output resolution (I use these settings
to keep the file size down, as I often e-mail these files).  Then I
save these documents, as variously named .pdf files, in My Documents.

How can I take, say, 5 separate equations from a page of one of these
.pdf files and insert them in, say, 5 different pages of my final
document?  Could someone either steer me to some pertinent directions
that a novice computer-user, such as myself, could understand, or,
could someone carefully outline what I must do to accomplish this
task?

Hi frank2-ga,

Since you appear to know how to scan whole documents into .pdf format,
I will guide my solution to build upon your existing knowledge.

Considering a case where you have multiple sets of formulas on a page
which has been scanned into Acrobat, an effective method of getting
these formulas on their own is as follows (this needs to be done for
each formula):

1. Make sure the formula is visible on the screen within the Acrobat
window

2. Press the 'PrintScreen' (or Prt Scr) key on your keyboard. This is
usually located at the upper right of a standard keyboard next to the
Scroll Lock.

3. Go into Word, open a document (it could be the one you are working
on or a temporary document used as a staging area).

4. In Word, go to Edit > Paste - you should get an image of your
entire screen on the document.

5. To change the image so that only the one formula you need is
visible, you need to make use of the Picture toolbar. If this did not
pop up along with your picture, you can access it through View >
Toolbars > Picture.

6. Cropping is a method of 'trimming' a picture down so that only the
part you want is retained. There is a crop tool on the Picture toolbar
that allows you to do this (it looks like a black square with extended
edges) - select it.

7. Position the cursor over the corner or edge of the picture - you
should notice the cursor change to either a thick black line or
L-shaped figure, When this happens, you can press down on your mouse
and drag towards the center of picture, eliminating sections of the
image you don't want from the outside inwards.

8. Continue this cropping process until you have eliminated all the
areas but your desired formula. At this point, you can resize the
image if necessary by just selecting the image, positioning the mouse
over the edge until a double-headed arrow appears, then drag inwards
or outwards as necessary until the size is as desired.

This image, from the moment it is 'pasted' into your document, is
embedded (meaning that is it included as a part of your document) so
you don't have to worry about additional files in addition to your
main Word document.

Hopefully this explanation proves helpful - should you be unclear on
anything above please do post a clarification and I will respond
promptly :)

Cheers!

answerguru-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by frank2-ga on 15 Aug 2003 14:51 PDT

Hello Guru-ga . . . sorry to say your answer did not work out.  When I
do a PrintScreen of the whole page displayed in AA5 and then paste it
in a Word document, I cannot "crop" away the parts I don't want.  All
the crop tool does is reduce, change, enlarge, whatever, the entire
intact PrintScreen image.  other methods or solutions to my problem? 
I can't help but believe this can be done in some way.  If you have
the time, perhaps you could actually try to do something along these
lines and if you are successful, then provide me with a step-by-step
outline of what you did.  PrintScreen, at least the way you told me to
use it, does not achieve my objective.

---

Clarification of Answer by answerguru-ga on 15 Aug 2003 15:18 PDT

Hi again frank2-ga

Actually I came across a tutorial that used the crop tool - I think
once you see this you will understand how to manipulate the image
properly. This particular example applies to clipart but the concept
is the same - I'm not sure why you are having problems because this
feature has been a part of Word for as long as I can remember. Perhaps
the icons shown in the tutorial will help you understand what is going
wrong:

http://www.awardsites.com/tutorials/word/clipart-01.htm

answerguru-ga

The useless original answer and the glib, useless clarification of
answer were a total waste of my time and money!!

if you can see it on your screen, you can use a program called snagit
to drag a box around your equation and paste it to MS Word. Precise
and no messy cropping.

http://www.techsmith.com/products/snagit/ and get the 30-day free
trial