Acrobat DC PDF convert returning garbage text

[mg22722993]

Running Adobe Acrobat DC on Mac 10.14.6

Trying to convert a PDF to docx or rtf (don't mind which)

All I'm getting back is scrambled / garbage text

Other PDFs seem to convert just fine

Some details regarding the original file:

PDF Producer: Mac OSX 10.13.6 Quartz PDFContext

PDF Version: 1.3 (Adobe 4.x)

It seems to be something to do with the font - if I edit the source PDF and change the font of one of the paragraphs, then export, the edited paragraph displays just fine.

It's a very long document though, so trying to avoid going through changing the font paragraph by paragraph. 

Any help gratefully received. 

Thank you

[mg22722993]

I figured a work around that worked pretty well:

1. Print Source PDF

2. Scan printed PDF as a new PDF

3. Open new PDF in Acrobat DC

4. Export to Word

[Chinthyrev]

This worked so well

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

The problem you describe happened because the fonts were not embedded into the PDF at the time it was created.

Best solution is to go back to your source document and re-export the PDF, this time drilling down into the conversion settings and selecting the option to embed the fonts into the PDF.

The Quartz PDF producer you mentioned is manufactured by Apple, not Adobe so this is not the forum for these questions. Remember, although Adobe created the PDF file format 30 years ago, Adobe placed it into the public domain in 2008 through the ISO (International Standards Organization). Since then, any company can make software that produces a PDF file, including Apple and Microsoft.

How well a PDF functions is controlled by how well the software adheres to the PDF standards (ISO 32000) and how well the user understands how to make a PDF (like embedding the fonts).

Also noting: your version of Quartz PDF is creating the PDF to 1.3 version of the PDF standard, which is 20 years out of date. You might want to upgrade your version of Quartz PDF or find the setting in the export options that makes a PDF compliant with PDF version 1.7, which is the latest version available before 2.0 was recently released (and isn't yet widely adopted in the industry).

For future reference, here are other related posts about embedding fonts into PDFs:

• https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/exporting-from-word-to-adobe-pro-dc/m-p/10659176#M221357 
• https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/scrambled-text-when-viewing-pdf-documents-in-acrobat-standard...