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/t5/acrobat-discussions/not-able-to-paste-the-copied-text-text-appears-as-boxes-when-pasted/td-p/14689001 Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024
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I have this pdf file:data.pdf, I don't know how it was created. When I copy the text from this pdf and paste it somwhere else it shows boxes instead of the text. I think it has to do something with its encoding or font-
General troubleshooting , PDF Community guidelines
ECQMlV+Helvetica (Embedded Subset)
Type: TrueType (CID)
Encoding: Identity-H
ZZSOZT+Helvetica-Bold (Embedded Subset)
Type: TrueType (CID)
Encoding: Identity-H
Please help me to copy paste the text.Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
1 Correct answer
Community Expert , Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024 try67 • Community Expert , Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024Yes, it's a font encoding issue. The only real solution is to re-create the file using proper fonts.
To do that export it as (high-quality) images, such as PNG, then create a new PDF file from those images, and run Text Recognition on it.
1 1 Upvote 6 Replies 6 Community Expert ,/t5/acrobat-discussions/not-able-to-paste-the-copied-text-text-appears-as-boxes-when-pasted/m-p/14689028#M467854 Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024
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Yes, it's a font encoding issue. The only real solution is to re-create the file using proper fonts.
To do that export it as (high-quality) images, such as PNG, then create a new PDF file from those images, and run Text Recognition on it.
1 1 Upvote Community guidelinesBe kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
/t5/acrobat-discussions/not-able-to-paste-the-copied-text-text-appears-as-boxes-when-pasted/m-p/14689116#M467865 Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024
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Thanks for the reply, I will do the Text recognition.
Is it possible someone had deliberately created the pdf in this fashion or it is somekind of error? And can I also create pdf's with this problem.
Community guidelinesBe kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
Community Expert ,/t5/acrobat-discussions/not-able-to-paste-the-copied-text-text-appears-as-boxes-when-pasted/m-p/14689255#M467878 Jun 18, 2024 Jun 18, 2024
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"Is it possible someone had deliberately created the pdf in this fashion or it is somekind of error?"
Neither. A PDF is not meant to be an editable format, it's an output format, and it's also designed to be compressed to make it as small as possible, hence, when a font is subsetted to make the file smaller, it will sometimes renecode it for this new "virtual font" (which is no longer Helvetica at all, but "ECQMlV+Helvetica") because it doesn't need the entire character map, especially the larger one that comes with some TrueType CID fonts. In other cases, it will leave the encoding as is, say, ANSI, because it's a smaller character map.
Is there a way to fix this after the fact? not really, as you can't get the eggs back after the cake is made.
However, some tools, like Pitstop or Markzware's OmniMarks (not trying to promote them, just showing an example), can allow you to remap Characters when you convert a PDF, like so:
Since your fonts are subsetted, you will only have to remap as many characters that you have used, but this will allow you to copy/export/create a new PDF of the text as a more usable form.
