Participant

Answered

Why can’t read inline a text that comes from a placed pdf

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
August 11, 2026
9 replies
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Hello,

Why can’t I read ONLINE a text in a PDF file, that comes from a placed pdf?

I have a document that contains many PDF visuals (designed separately and placed on to the final combined InDesign document).

I export them with InDesign file into a PDF (print), with digital settings format.

When this PDF is opened in a browser (Google Chrome), the text from those visuals cannot be find (cmd+f). When opened in Adobe Acrobat, the find function works just fine for all the text in the visuals mentioned above.

Any idea how to fix the online search (I need to send a link to users, that they can open online and do their search).

Thank you in advance for any ideas to solve this!

M.

Correct answer Eugene Tyson

Third-party PDF viewers (Chrome, Safari, Foxit, Samsung Reader, etc.) render files inconsistently because many don't support the full PDF specification. While Adobe Acrobat remains the standard for accurate rendering, you can rarely control what software your audience uses. Unless you mandate Acrobat or provide a "Best viewed in Adobe Acrobat" download link you’re stuck dealing with a dozen different rendering engine issues across various devices.

Frans v.d. Geest

Community Expert

Do you Place the pdf? If so, it is like a (vector) image, no longer ‘plain text’…

B

Bubbly_mentors40e0Author

Participant

Yes, exactly.

I came to the same conclusion and browsers (other readers) don’t really like it.

Saying that, it reads/finds a text from a JPG image I have placed on the previous page…

So, I just wandered if anyone had the same issue or experience/ideas regarding a placed PDF.

J E L

Community Expert

@Bubbly_mentors40e0, if you “need to send a link to users,” you can simply share the file from Acrobat through File > Share with the Continuous Release version. Is that what you are using? Share will open a window that allows you to upload the file to Adobe’s cloud storage. You can copy the link to send to others or add individual email addresses for access. Unless the users have some extremely obscure browser, they will be able to see exactly what you are seeing in your local copy of Acrobat and use the find (cmd+f) tool. I just did a find test for you using Brave browser (see my screenshot). It should work the same in Chrome.

B

Bubbly_mentors40e0Author

Participant

Thanks for the suggestion. I have users all around the world and the web browser is the best/only option for some, therefore.

J E L

Community Expert

Yes, they will be able to access the PDF with any browser from the Acrobat link. And if you are able to use the find tool in your local PDF as you indicated, meaning the text is accessible to you in your PDF for a search, then other users should be able to do the same from the Acrobat shared link as I demonstrated.

Maybe you can explain your steps in more detail. Did you first place a text-accessible PDF into an InDesign document and then export it to a new PDF? If so, are you able to use the Ctrl+F function to search and find text? Because if the PDF you placed was not text accessible in the first place, and you didn’t use InDesign to convert it to text, this may be the reason others won’t be able to use the find tool either.

E

Eugene Tyson

Correct answer

Community Expert

Third-party PDF viewers (Chrome, Safari, Foxit, Samsung Reader, etc.) render files inconsistently because many don't support the full PDF specification. While Adobe Acrobat remains the standard for accurate rendering, you can rarely control what software your audience uses. Unless you mandate Acrobat or provide a "Best viewed in Adobe Acrobat" download link you’re stuck dealing with a dozen different rendering engine issues across various devices.

B

Bubbly_mentors40e0Author

Participant

Thanks, that’s what I thought too, just wandered if there’s any way around it.
Thanks for confirming my founding!

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Bubbly_mentors40e0,

Thanks for reporting this and for the detailed explanation.

I'm currently checking with the product team to get a concrete understanding of whether this is expected behavior, a browser compatibility limitation, or an issue that needs further investigation. I'll update this thread as soon as I hear back from the team.

Thanks for your patience!

Abhishek

BobLevine

Community Expert

When you export, you export an Adobe PDF. Bottom line is this, if it works in Acrobat it’s fine. Third party PDF readers and browsers may or may not work. This is not an InDesign issue.

Why can’t I read ONLINE a text in a PDF file, that comes from a placed pdf?

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