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Participating Frequently
June 10, 2024
Question

2 different Indd documents link to the same PDF but the outcome is different

  • June 10, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 501 views

I am working on 2 older Indd documents here.  The documents are in 2 different languages.  However, the 2 documents link to the same PDF which is unreadable because texts are overlapping.  But when linked in the indesign file, the texts from the same unreadable PDF are showing correctly in the correct language.  How is this possible?  In attach I dropped some printscreens.  I haven't got a clue on how this is possible...

Any help would be appreciated.

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1 reply

leo.r
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 10, 2024

Do I understand correctly that the following happens:

 

When you open your PDF in Acrobat (or another PDF reader), the PDF is unreadable due to overlapping text.

 

However, when you place this PDF in InDesign, the text in the PDF file appears correctly in InDesign.

Daro1500Author
Participating Frequently
June 11, 2024

Hello leo.r,  That is correct.  How strange this may sound but that's the fact.  Unreadable in Acrobat pro but the same document is perfectly readable once imported and linked in Indesign.  So I thought my long gone colleagues must have inserted a trigger somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.  Point is that we need to adapt some text in these PDF-files and instead of manually copying all the text, I was wondering if some of the indesign wizards would have an idea how this can be done. 🙂

leo.r
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 11, 2024

Such a situation can probably happen if the fonts are not embedded in the PDF. While the fonts are available in InDesign in a location that Acrobat doesn't see (for example, Document Fonts folder). That's just my guess.

 

In any case, try to place your PDF in InDesign, then export the InDesign document to PDF (make sure fonts are embedded, which is the default anyway). Will the resulting PDF appear normally in Acrobat?