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Inspiring
July 19, 2016
Question

Missing Text when Combining .PDF Files and Posting to the Web

  • July 19, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 1375 views

I've looked over the forums, but can't see where this is answered. I'm combining anywhere from 4 - 6 separate .pdf files, then adding bookmarks, linking each .pdf to a master web page, then moving those files to a web server for our customers to view. I'm using Acrobat XI Pro.

When I combine the .pdfs and view them on my computer, everything is fine. When I move the combined .pdf to our web server, text goes missing. See below. Is there anything that can be done? Combined files range in size from 24 MB to 59 MB.

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2 replies

Luke Jennings
Inspiring
July 20, 2016

I suspect your PDF has layers and/or transparency that is preventing the type from displaying properly outside of Acrobat. Try flattening the PDF. One way is to go to Tools> Print Production> Preflight> Acrobat/PDF version Compatibility, choose Acrobat 4, which will flatten the PDF.

Another way is to save-as an optimized PDF> Transparency> make compatible with Acrobat 4. You might also make your PDF smaller by checking on the Discard Objects, User Data, and Clean up.

Inspiring
July 20, 2016

Neither solution works. Preflighting caused my bookmarks to not work. When I "re-bookmarked" it caused text to disappear again. Optimizing rasterized and pixelated images.

Luke Jennings
Inspiring
July 20, 2016

When you optimize, did you un-check all but the transparency?

Are the fonts properly embedded? you can check by going to file> Properties> Fonts in Acrobat.

If not, you can try to embed them with Acrobat, but best practice is to re-make the original, un-combined PDFs with embedded fonts.

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 20, 2016

Do you view the documents with Adobe Acrobat?

Inspiring
July 20, 2016

Yes