Skip to main content
Participant
June 29, 2023
Question

PDF repeating the beginning and the end of some lines of text

  • June 29, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1942 views

Hello, does anyone knows what causes the PDF to repeat the beginning and the end of some lines of text?

For example, my text is: "I would like to write you a letter", visually it looks like that, but if I try to copy it, it pastes: "I would like to write you a letterI letter". It's not just copying, trying to select the text in the PDF also shows the word duplication to the point that it prevents me from selecting the first and second line correctly, because it keeps selecting a phantom "I".

I checked using "Edit PDF" if there was any funny bussiness with the text, but it shows a single textbox with no repetition nor any weird text bellow it. The Indesign original also has no duplication and look very standart. I tried to open it on different computers, the error occour on all, on the same lines. I also checked the PDF export configurations, it is the same as we always use, pretty close to standart.

Just in case it is relevant, the documents are in Portuguese, but the error occurs even in lines without special Portuguese characters. The error also occurs on different lines within the textbox, sometimes in all of them, sometimes not, sometimes in the first line, sometimes just in the middle, some textboxes have no issues -- it's pretty random.

I appreciate any help, this is quite maddening.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Karl Heinz  Kremer
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2023

The fact that you are going from InDesign to PDF rules out any dodgy PDF creator. InDesign knows how to create good PDF. How are you creating PDF from InDesign? Are you using one of the standard PDF presets in InDesign? Does this also happen when you use a different PDF preset to create your PDF? Does it happen with ohter documents when you use the PDF preset that you are using for this particular document?

Participant
June 29, 2023

Thank you for the reply. 

I made some tests following your suggestions. No matter how it is saved, if shows the exact same repetition. Different documents also show this issue. I, then, tried to open using Google's app, the problem vanishes. It looks like it is an Acrobat's issue afterall. 😞

Karl Heinz  Kremer
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2023

Can you share one of these files?