TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: PDF saved to gibberish From:Ken Poshedly <poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net> To:Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>,TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:12:53 -0400
Nancy,
I went through this exact same thing using pdf files supplied by my
company's home office in China. We were trying to get Word (or at
least rtf) files. The result was using ABBY PDF Transformer as
recommended by another subscriber to this list.
We bought several copies of it (only one installation allowed per
license), and are EXTREMELY pleased -- no more problem pdf's.
-- Ken in Atlanta
At 10:45 AM 6/14/2010, Nancy Allison wrote:
>Hi, all.
>
>I have tried two ways to save the text of a PDF to .txt and both
>attempts produced a weird, symbol-font type gibberish.
>
>This is what it looks like once it's pasted into Plain Text: . In
>the .txt file, it shows lots of male and female symbols, exclamation
>points, musical notes, and geometric figures.
>
>I used the Acrobat Save as Text command, and also selected all the
>text and pasted it into a .txt file. Same result both times.
>
>I selected the gibberish and assigned different fonts to it; the
>gibberish showed up in the selected fonts. It seems as the text has
>been assigned to a different character set.
>
>The PDF document properties show a Security Method of "No Security,
>" Document Assembly, Comenting, Signing, and Creation of Template
>Pages are Not Allowed.
>
>Everything else, including Content Copying, is allowed.
>
>Any ideas as to what's going on, and how I can successfully extract the text?
>
>Thanks!
>
>--Nancy
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Gain access to everything you need to create and publish documentation,
>manuals, and other information through multiple channels. Choose
>authoring (and import) as well as virtually any output you may need.
>http://www.doctohelp.com/
>
>---
>You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net -dot-
>
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to
>techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>or visit
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/poshedly%40bellsouth.net
>
>
>To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
>Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gain access to everything you need to create and publish documentation,
manuals, and other information through multiple channels. Choose
authoring (and import) as well as virtually any output you may need. http://www.doctohelp.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
