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Participant
October 9, 2025
Question

The code that appears when copying and pasting text from an InDesign-exported English (Western) typo

  • October 9, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 228 views

 

I’m Japanese.
I’m currently designing an English layout in InDesign, but when I export the file as a PDF and copy text from the PDF into a Word document, some strange codes appear, like this:

 

 
€sl185€slmult0 “dammy (text)” (line break) €b0€sl185€slmult0 “dammy (text)” €b0
 

When I paste the same PDF text into another text tool (e.g., Mac Notes), it displays normally.
The English font I’m using is “Helvetica Neue.”
The PDF export preset is “High Quality Print.”

Possible causes:

  • Metadata remaining from the original translation process.

  • Design or formatting data being displayed as code when copied.

  • Font “subset embedding” during PDF export. (I set the subset value to 0%, but the issue remains unresolved.)

If anyone knows the cause or a solution, I’d greatly appreciate your advice.

___

 

和訳

日本人です。

インデザインで欧文の文字組みをしたデザインを作っている最中なんですが、

PDFに書き出したときに、PDF上のテキストをコピーし、 wordファイルにペーストすると以下の不明なコードが入ってしまいます。

 

 €sl185€slmult0 “dammy(文章)”

 (改行)€b0€sl185€slmult0 “dammy(文章)” €b0

 

*PDFのテキストを他のテキストツール(例:mac のメモ等)にペーストすると、正常にテキストが表示されます。

*使用欧文は「Helvetica Neue」です。

*PDF書き出し時のプリセットは「高品質印刷」です。

 

考えられる要因:

・元のテキストに英語翻訳した際のメタデータが残っている。

・PDF化した際のデザイン情報がコードとして表示されている。

・InDesignのPDF書き出し時、フォントが「サブセット埋め込み」になっている→「フォントのサブセット」を0%に設定しましたが、未解決です

 

原因と解決策をご存知の方が入れば、お知らせください。

2 replies

Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 16, 2025

If anyone knows the cause or a solution, I’d greatly appreciate your advice.

 

Copying Latin-script text out of a PDF usually works as expected - but in my experience as a localization engineer, I never expect to be able to copy complex-script or East Asian text out of a PDF. Sometimes it works, but it's not reliable. I always prefer to export a text file format of some kind.

 

In your case, I think you are correct in suspecting font subsetting. I find it interesting that Notes can correctly interpret the data on your pasteboard, but I can't speculate as to why that works correctly without having access to the source file, the resultant PDF, and perhaps more knowledge of how the clipboard works on macOS than I currently have. I suspect that it's because the macOS clipboard usually stores text in RTF format, but that it is performing a PDF-to-RTF conversion using its own libraries for PDF manipulation. I also wonder if you are copying and pasting from Preview into InDesign, or from Acrobat into InDesign. (If you've only tested with one, perhaps try the other?)

 

If being able to copy Japanese text out of your PDF is very important to you for some kind of workflow reason, it might be worth experimenting with exporting with other export settings, for example trying the PDF/X-4:2008 export preset instead of High Quality Print. 

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
October 9, 2025

Hi @???_??1874,

 

Since the text pastes correctly into Notes, it confirms that the content itself is fine, but Word is reading the embedded style information as visible text. Could you please confirm which version of InDesign and operating system you’re using? It would also be helpful if you could share a screenshot of your Export Adobe PDF window or a short screen recording showing your export workflow, so we can take a closer look at the settings being used. Additionally, please confirm if this behavior occurs only with this particular file or if it happens with all your exported PDFs.

 

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

Participant
October 9, 2025

Hi @Abhishek Rao

Thank you for your prompt reply.

>Could you please confirm which version of InDesign and operating system you’re using?

  • Adobe InDesign 2025
  • macOS Sequoia 15.4

 

>It would also be helpful if you could share a screenshot of your Export Adobe PDF window or a short screen recording showing your export workflow, so we can take a closer look at >the settings being used.
Please see the attached file.

https://5.gigafile.nu/1015-t14d177cd1a0318077c9885fea424452a

password:1010

 

>Additionally, please confirm if this behavior occurs only with this particular file or if it happens with all your exported PDFs.
This issue occurs with all PDF files. (Our client has also reported that similar issues have occurred with other companies.)

 

Thank you for your attention.

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
October 16, 2025

Hi @???_??1874,

 

Thanks for the update and for sharing the details. It seems the link you provided doesn't display or contain any data. Could you please create a new one and share it again? This time, if possible, please also include a sample affected file, so I can test it directly. If the file is confidential, feel free to share it via DM on the community instead. You can use any public cloud sharing service such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

 

Looking forward to your update so I can check this further.

Abhishek