spent hours trying to copy from PDF to paste into ODF document. cant even block (select) the text.

I suggest that you use LibreOffice to open the PDF file and save it as ODT file. After that, you can copy the text easily.

I thought I had tried that, several times, but was stopped by apparently irrelevant page. This time, I got this Page, <\AppData\Local\Temp\lu121641i54h.tmp>, which may have been what I thought to be the irrelevant information. however, and found the relevant file, now shown as an ODF file. So, I copied and pasted it into my appropriate directory. when I retrieved it, though, my attempts to copy we're treated as though the pages were photographs. I still could not edit the text.

When I open a pdf in LibreOffice (writer), I can either edit it directly or save it as odg and edit.