Selecting Text

[TheBFid]

I am running Stirling-PDF version 2.1.0. I can't believe I am asking this but I can't determine how to select text! I have documents that have already had OCR performed in Acrobat. I can search and find text in Stirling but I can't for the life of me figure out how to select the text thus enabling me to copy it. I see the hand meaning I am in Pan mode. I can click the image of the hand that supposedly toggles Pan mode off and on but it has no effect. I only get the hand when my cursor is on the document. Claude and Gemini tell me to click on the cursor/selection tool, but I can't seem to find it. What am I missing?

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @TheBFid! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the Stirling-PDF team.

Text selection and pan mode toggling are both supported in Stirling-PDF 2.1.0. The hand cursor means Pan mode is active, which lets you move the document but not select text. To select and copy text, you need to toggle Pan mode off—look for a toolbar button labeled "Pan Mode" or a hand icon and click it. When Pan mode is off, your cursor should change to a pointer, and you can click and drag to select text as expected.

If clicking the hand icon or Pan Mode button doesn't switch modes, try refreshing the page or using a different browser, as this could be a UI sync issue. The selection layer is always present unless Pan mode is active, so toggling Pan mode should restore text selection functionality. If you still can't select text, you can use the search feature to highlight and copy text as a workaround, or check for any recent UI bugs in your environment.

For more details on the tools and UI, see the official documentation and recent feature updates.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[Richard-Haes-Ellis]

Im having the same issue on windows 11 app with version:
Current Frontend Version: 2.9.2
Current Backend Version: 2.9.2

[drgshah]

We are unable to reproduce the issue so it's difficult for us to fix it but I am working on a new potential fix that will go into the next release. Hopefully we will have more luck with this one.

Works on Mac, doesnt work on Windows app., latest versions on both.

Stirling pdf self hosted.
Win app - select text doesnt work
Mac app - select text works fine.
everything else works great - its just the pan icon stays activated and doesnt change to select text mode when clicked on.

Your efforts are highly appreciated :) Thank you!

[KC703]

Also cannot select text after toggle pan mode using Windows 11. The hand icon does not go away after toggling.

[Frooodle]

We hopefully have a fix for next release

[str8coder]

I just updated to 2.11 and facing the same issue. This is the html code for the pan button

[thefirstmartyr]

@Frooodle, the root issue may not be the pan tool. I am getting a bug similar to this one where:

1. If I click on the redact tool (from either the left or the right),
2. After I exit the tool, I still have the cursor to redact text

Expected behaviour is that I would normally have the select cursor (I actually never get the normal select cursor because my cursor is bugged to be the "pan" cursor).

[Frooodle]

Is anyone able try try our alpha tag and see if they still have the issue?

[ryangriggs]

Sure I'll do it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *AI was not used to compose this message. [? <https://hilltop.net/pages/about-hilltop/no-ai.php>]* Ryan Griggs Hilltop Computing www.hilltop.net 859-328-3223 Toll Free: 1 (888) 5-HILLTOP (888-544-5586)

…

On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 12:40 PM Anthony Stirling ***@***.***> wrote: Is anyone able try try our alpha tag and see if they still have the issue? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5175?email_source=notifications&email_token=ABMVKGIYQARKB66Z6GK2P5D4XJBP5A5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNRWHA3TEOJXUZZGKYLTN5XKOY3PNVWWK3TUUVSXMZLOOSWGM33PORSXEX3DNRUWG2Y#discussioncomment-16687297>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABMVKGIT3K2OSX3EAFAIR4D4XJBP5AVCNFSM6AAAAACOFNCWP6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTMNRYG4ZDSNY> . Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/ios/ABMVKGMJ2H3JRXI5TMGU6C34XJBP5A5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNRWHA3TEOJXUZZGKYLTN5XKOY3PNVWWK3TUUVSXMZLOOSVGM33PORSXEX3JN5ZQ> and Android <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/android/ABMVKGKNBMVOR7DSHU573ZD4XJBP5A5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNRWHA3TEOJXUZZGKYLTN5XKOY3PNVWWK3TUUVSXMZLOOSXGM33PORSXEX3BNZSHE33JMQ>. Download it today! You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: <Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF/repo-discussions/5175/comments/16687297@ github.com>

[ashstorm]

Hello I'm facing the same issue no matter if it is the app or different browsers I have tried them all windows and nothing works is this still being worked on for the next release?
Current Version: 2.11.0

[Frooodle]

I thought this was resolved will check in with the team on Monday and try get a fix asap

[ashstorm]

yeah I thought so too but no can you please take a look and tell me if I'm doing something wrong here or something else I should try

[mrjfilippo]

It has yet to work for me on Windows. Works fine on Mac.

[hasanur-rahman079]

Facing the same issue. Is this resolved?

[oftalmos-org]

same problem on win 11 here

[Frooodle]

Is the issue text selection or doing right click copy?

[Frooodle]

I can't reproduce this, can anyone send a example PDF?
Do you see it on all PDFs?
Does it still happen after repair tool run and OCR?

[drgshah]

Hey @Frooodle are you on Win or Mac OS?
This has been an issue only for Windows that I know of. Others have said the same above. Works fine on Mac.
I have a Macbook and 3 windows PCs. This issues only appears on Windows.
The issue is not being able to select text. even when you toggle the "Pan" icon, it toggles off but the cursor remains as a "hand icon" and not able to select text. This was nexer fixed and is still an issue on 2.12.0 (self hosted frontend and backend).
Thanks for looking into this.

[Frooodle]

Thanks for detailed info, I'll see what I can do.. I weirdly can't reproduce on my windows machine but I'll see what I can do

[Frooodle]

Is this a issue on web or desktop install or both?

[drgshah]

My personal setup is that i have a NAS server which runs docker and has a stirling pdf self hosted backend container. This is then pointed to my domain and i can use a windows frontend to open/edit my PDFs. This setup worls great on Mac and i can select text, but the text selection specifically doesnt work on windows.

Interestingly, i tried using https://stirling.com/app and uploaded a pdf to play around with it and it doesnt let me select text either. Now this is a pdf which has selectable text and can easily select text when i open the same file on adobe pdf.

hopefully this helps. If it still doesnt, i am happy to take a short video and post it online.

[Smiggus]

Hi @Frooodle, is this for the desktop app? Should i set it as a server on there? If so I get a cannot connect to server from there (connecting from Spain).

At the webapp, even on the selfhosted docker there is no issue on my end. The issue is on an ASUS Zephyrus G16 2024 - No touchscreen at all on it.

[mrjfilippo]

I believe it to be related to if the device you use has touchscreen or not

Could that be it? I only tested on my Surface Pro, which has touchscreen and it hasn't worked yet.

[Smiggus]

I believe it to be related to if the device you use has touchscreen or not

Could that be it? I only tested on my Surface Pro, which has touchscreen and it hasn't worked yet.

Unfortunately I dont think it would be that straight forward. On my laptop, which does not have a touchscreen, it hasnt worked either.

[Frooodle]

Laptops with touchpads/trackpads can sometimes register as touchscreen I am still not certain it isn't that
We are doing a release tomorrow with the possible touchscreen fix, will see if that helps or not and go from there

[drgshah]

@drgshah can you see if http://54.175.155.236:6656/ fixes it for you?

Sorry @Frooodle that didnt seem to work. i cannot open the link directly. I tried to add it as a server and didnt seem to be able to connect.
Apologies if i am being anoob and am meant to do something else with the link.
All my devices are non touchscreen.
Could the issue might be in the windows stirling pdf app?

[Smiggus]

I can confirm this is still present on the desktop app on win11 here. For the docker via Chrome it works fine. However when using the desktop app the pan tool is still broken.

[Joni4Games]

Same behavior on the Windows 11 desktop app here. Can't really use the application because of this.

[akkadhim]

Same issue on Windows 11 with desktop version. Turning off the Pan tool will not allow the text selection tool to work.

[Nutoka89]

Unfortunately, version 2.13.0 did not resolve the issue for me.

[Frooodle]

damm... will investigate further sorry for this

[Smiggus]

I confirm it didnt work for me either. Even when I select the ruler tool, the hand pan tool stays above it, so it seems to be a bug where it is always enabled.

[type-abhay]

This still hasn't been resolved, facing the exact same issue. Just updated to version 2.13.1 that also didn't fix it. Running the desktop app on a Windows 11 machine with touchscreen, if that helps get more data and idea of the root cause.

[drgshah]

@Frooodle - thank you for your help so far.
2.13.2 = issue not resolved.
I have attached a quick video to help you understand.
StirlingPDF left window and Adobe on the right. Both with the same PDF file.
StirlingPDF doesnt select text, while adode has no issues with selecting text.
This is on 2.13.2 front and back end, windows, with a self hosted stirlingPDF container on home server.

20260628_18_15_00_903.mp4

[EliottZip]

I'm sad to report that the issue is still happening on the latest version 2.13.2 on Windows 11.

[type-abhay]

@Frooodle - thank you for your help so far.
This issue still persists on windows. With each new version I hope to be able to use this application but I am unable to do so because of this very basic feature being bugged.

Current Frontend Version: 2.14.0
Current Backend Version: 2.14.0

[Darks41]

Maybe it is conflicts with other software: Issue #7104