Hello,

i understand from the folks at GW Micro that there are a few pending fixes
to Acrobat Reader 5.0 that will make it easier to save unsecure PDF files
as text if needed (which should help with the copying problem) and will
make it easier to access PDF files created with earlier versions of
Acrobat.  The person I talked to thought these fixes should be available
within the next couple months.

Another interesting boost to PDF accessibility might be Kurzweil 1000,
Version 6.0.  I haven't tried this yet, but as I understand it, they have
created a virtual printer driver.  When you print a PDF file using this
driver, Kurzweil 1000 scans and recognizes the text.  So as long as the PDF
is printable (which may not always be the case because of the author's
security settings), it should be possible to get reasonably good access to
it, even if it is an image file.  As I said, I haven't tried it yet so
don't know how well it works, but it certainly sounds good.

Regards,
Anna