PDF problem
Copied PDF text comes out as gibberish
SymptomThe page looks normal, but copied text pastes as symbols, boxes or the wrong letters.
Why it happens
- •The font has no ToUnicode map, so readers can't tell which characters the glyph codes stand for.
- •Custom encodings or Type 3 fonts without character information.
How to fix it
Treat it like a scan
Convert the page to an image with PDF to JPG, rebuild it with JPG to PDF, and run OCR PDF. The recognised text copies correctly.
Ask for a better export
The source app can usually export with proper text mapping.
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Open OCR PDFQuestions people ask
+Is the PDF damaged?
No, it just lacks the mapping from glyphs to characters.
+Can this affect search?
Yes. Search uses the same mapping, so it fails too.
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