Panning Hand.

[Khandro]

In W7, IE. when I want to highlight text from the internet to copy, instead of having the mouse text cursor I'm getting the panning hand symbol which doesn't allow highlighting, just annoyingly grabs its tiny fingers when I click on it. How can I change this please?

[SlackAlice]

Difficult to explain so bear with me. The 'hand' symbol probably appears because there is a hidden link underneath.

Move the cursor down slightly until it returns to a pointer, then left click and hold down whilst moving mouse from right to left to get the 'highlight'.

[Old_Geezer]

Also, I can get the wrong cursor when the PC is being sluggish, maybe running out of resources. Is it still a problem after a reboot ?

[Khandro]

Alice; Thanks, but the hand doesn't change wherever I put it (except when it reaches the bottom of the page when it sticks up one finger - a bit rude really! lol)
Could it be the text is copyrighted? If I give you the example;

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xznRvmDxVmQC&pg=PA80&;lpg=PA80&dq=wittgenstein+and+laburnum+tree&source=bl&ots=IONFx9NKp1&;sig=ull6oTy8MXON7YDY2fLYh3MKp9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BLRgVJvZH4PAPZ6TgagP&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=wittgenstein%20and%20laburnum%20tree&f=false

Can you highlight parts of that that text?
OG: computer working OK.

[ummmm]

Have you tried saving it?

[Old_Geezer]

It is probably an image not just text, so you can't select parts of it, just the whole picture.

If you copy the picture you may be able to run a OCR on it.

[Khandro]

ummm; Good point, it looks as though I could 'save as', but it is many pages and I really only wanted a few sentences.
OG; There are no pics.

[Tuvok]

What Old Geezer means that although it looks like a page of text its actually a picture. An example of what we mean is look at the icon for Facebook at the top of the page. The F on it is not selectable because it is part of the picture.

[Tuvok]

Try saving the bit you want and use this site

http://www.free-ocr.com

[Dizmo]

The URL you gave is clearly of a book in PDF format. Why not Print Screen the selection of text if you require to print it. What it looks like you are trying to do is copy something that you shouldn't be copying.

[Khandro]

Tuvok: Ahh I see what you mean, having scrolled up through all the text (link above) I see that it commences with the picture cover of the book, but are you saying I would have to save all the book to free-ocr , because the whole point is that I am unable to save it in part only.

[Dizmo]

Wouldn't it be easier for you to send us (the gurus) the link and let us (the gurus) see if it's a problem with the site or your computer?

[Old_Geezer]

Link at 17:17, Dizmo.

Yes you need to get the picture and OCR it. If it's worth the hassle.

[Dizmo]

OG: I misread "Could it be the text is copyrighted? If I give you the example; " for "Could it be the text is copyrighted? If I give you an example;". My apologies.

I've used OCR a few times and I'm not overly impressed - each to their own :)

[SlackAlice]

The book is an image file, which is why you cannot copy and paste. You've got to do a printscreen and OCR to turn it into text.

By the time you've done all that, you could have typed it all out into a notepad file.

[Tuvok]

to do what Slack Alice says you first press PRINT SCR button on keyboard - above the number pad on a normal keyboard, or if you have a keyboard without a numberpad it will probably be printed on a key in a different colour, to which you may need to press a key marked Fn first.

Now you will need to paste into whatever image editing program you have then save the file and put it into free-ocr

[Dizmo]

Or you just copy and paste from here? http://www.scribd.com/doc/86157450/Reason-Faith-and-Revolution-Reflections-on-the-God-Debate

[Dizmo]

I've just saved you all hours of work. Regards, Dizmo ;P

[Dizmo]

I don't usually like to ask but I think I deserve the Best Answer for that one.

[Dizmo]

And, it's the whole book. I've excelled myself.