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Using The Swift Programming Language 2.2 from iBooks, i can't seem to copy the text (many lines of code from inside the book) to then test.

Does anybody know why this is happening? In the past I have been able to copy the text from the book however now it is not letting me (it's greyed out).

For example

Cannot Copy and Paste from iBooks

Here is another example of what I mean.

Cannot Copy and Paste from iBooks

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  • Welcome to Ask Different. Could you let us know what OS and version of iBooks you are using? there are several on iOS and on Mac so the solution might be easier if you narrow down your setup. – bmike♦ Feb 2 '16 at 0:58
  • I can't reproduce the error. In addition to what bmike suggested, can you tell us what device you're using? Have you tested to see if you can copy text from another book? – gardenhead Feb 2 '16 at 1:11
  • I am using a Macbook running El Capitan running 10.11.3. iBooks is 1.4. Also if it's any help I seem to have two copies of The Swift Programming Language 2.2, but they are still different (as in they have subtle differences in text and code). – user2857301 Feb 2 '16 at 2:08
  • Is that a fixed-layout ePub? iBooks has a hard time copying text from some fixed-layout ePubs. – retrography Feb 2 '16 at 6:23
  • I have the same problem on MacOS Sierra 10.12.1, iBooks ver 1.7, Swift 3.0.1. Seems nobody fix this problem... – wcf Dec 8 '16 at 7:35
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Below are steps for copying text from iBooks:

  1. Highlight the passages you wish to copy.
  2. A popup will be opened automatically or you must open a popup using a right click on selected passages.
  3. Select the 'Add Note' option from the popup.
  4. The selected/highlighted text will be shown on the left pane.
  5. Right click on the passages in the left panel and select the 'Copy' option.

I have created a video to show how it works: https://youtu.be/ZQLl_Gl9TMw

Happy coding!

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  • While this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – Glorfindel♦ Jul 28 '17 at 13:58
  • @Glorfindel, Thank you very much for your suggestions. I heartily Appreciate it. I have updated my answer and Pls let me know if any changes required..Happy Coding..Thanks Again – Renish Dadhaniya Jul 29 '17 at 4:21
  • Thanks, this is better now. I hope there's another user around who can improve the grammar (and probably the formatting), I have other duties right now. – Glorfindel♦ Jul 29 '17 at 7:45
  • @Glorfindel, I have updated my Grammer. Hope, I think It looks better. Thanks for your suggestions. – Renish Dadhaniya Jul 29 '17 at 12:09
  • I have made some changes as well. I tried to cut out the 'fluff' so that it focuses on the actual content of the answer. This is how an ideal Stack Exchange answer would look like (at least to me) so I've upvoted it. (It still has an automatic downvote from the Community ♦ user, because it started out as low-quality. I can't do anything about that.) – Glorfindel♦ Jul 29 '17 at 12:14
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I was unable to copy code from a sample eBook that I'd downloaded from the iBook store. After purchasing the book, the copy feature worked.

Perhaps this is the source of the reproducibility error.

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  • This was the case for me, thanks for pointing this out! – Nick Farina Jul 20 '18 at 18:16
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Highlight the passages you wish to copy.

Then go into the show notes area by clicking the show notes icon in the toolbar.

Select the passages you want to copy. Go to edit > copy.

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As of January 2018 this is the easiest workaround I've found on iPhone:

  1. Select the text you wish to copy,
  2. Choose Search from popover
    • The text you want is in the search field at the top of the search results screen
  3. Long tap in the search field to open the text selection popover
  4. Choose Select All
  5. Choose Copy
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1

A workaround is to get content from the website. https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/

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0

The only way I found is to use more -> search web and to copy that text from Google search bar.

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I believe this may be a copyright issue.

It might have been kindle – I can't remember – but I recall trying to listen to a book using text to speech a while back. At this time, text to speech copied the text to the clipboard. I eventually hit a wall where I couldn't copy text anymore. I believe there may be a limit to how much you're allowed to copy.

Here's an older article talking about this. Granted, this article is old and may be outdated.

Solutions? You need to be careful to research the legality of this, but you might be able to use OCR software to copy stuff – this isn't legal advice, so you need to figure this out yourself.

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