Is there a way to copy the text from a pdf and keep the fonts tabs etc. when placed in indesign? Im sure theres a way but i cant find it.
Thanks
Poobelly

Not really.
You're going to pretty much get what you get, when you copy/paste from a PDF.
Since the PDF is never the original doc, the word processing capabilities are limited.

However, if you have full Acrobat AND the PDF is unsecured you might do better by Exporting the PDF as a Microsoft Word document and then placing the Word document into InDesign instead.

I tried Terry's approach out of curiosity, cuz I've never done it before. Pretty slick. However, I did notice some anomalies. Though it does import the text and fonts that were used, when placed in ID, it loses the page layout, including non-import of photo images, some text formatting/and placement is lost (the font, and size will be correct - but, leading or line-spacing, tracking, etc. are not retained).

I recently took the following approach. I was forced into recreating 4 ID files, that I had lost. I did have the original PDF versions however. Perhaps, this scheme may work for you. Here are my steps:
• Opened the PDF in Acrobat
• Went to File/Properties/Description to obtain the document size
• Then to Fonts in File/Properties to get the list of embedded font names
• Once I got the properties I needed, I closed the window, but left the PDF open in Acrobat
• Launched ID, created a new doc, to the acquired size
• Placed the PDF onto its own layer, reduced its transparency to about 25%, to use as a template (and locked the layer)
• I created new separate blank layers - one for text, one for photos, and one for guides
• I created some guides on the guides layer, for positioning the eventual pasted text and photos
• Went back to Acrobat - selected the text (the entire story, like 4 columns) - and copied it
• Back to InDesign - dragged a new text box (in the text layer), and pasted the text (once pasted, I formatted the text, based on the font info that I obtained from the PDF's properties - and, had the template layer for reference).
• To get the photos - back to Acrobat - crop one of the photos, and I exported just the photo as a tiff - Saved As to name the photo - Make sure NOT to save the original PDF, as it would be overwritten (to be safe, you could duplicate the original PDF before you start).
• Back to InDesign - place the newly cropped Tiff
• Same process for other photos or objects

I did all this using ID and Acrobat CS3.

I hope this helps. And, or maybe a combination of Terry's approach and some of what I related.