Converting arabic pdfs

[Nadiyah]

I am trying to convert arabic pdfs to word document files. Once converted the arabic characters are appearing as boxes instead of the characters. 

Does anyone know how to resolve this? Is there an additional language pack i can download? 

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Although converting a PDF back to MS Word works well when the PDF content is in the Latin language such as English or French for instance, yet it fails miserably when the content is Arabic or Farsi for example.

If you're on Windows platform and using a new Microsoft Office, you may try the following… In Microsoft Word, choose Open, then locate to open your PDF with Arabic content.

MS Word will convert the PDF in a much better way than Acrobat. If you, however, using a Mac, then you have no choice but to convert your PDF from Acrobat, but make sure to install all the fonts found in the PDF.

[Dov Isaacs]

There really are two issues here.

(1)  In terms of the “boxes” as opposed to actual glyphs, the problem may very likely be that either (a) the Arabic fonts used in the PDF file are not independently installed on your computer and/or (b) the encoding of the font in the PDF file is incorrect.

(2)  The bigger problem, assuming the font issue is resolved, is simply that Acrobat export simply does not support right-to-left languages including Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew. Usually, the resultant Word file shows the characters in reversed order (i.e., improperly left-to-right).

The fact is that full support for conversion of right-to-left language text in PDF to other formats has been requested by many users over the years, but is not currently on the roadmap for Acrobat development. If this is important to you and others, I suggest you enter a request at https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac .

       - Dov

[adrismany35130630]

I have the same issue when converting pdf with arabic content to ms-word.

However i manged to converted it with https://www.sejda.com

The result is almost perfect...it's probably around 85 to 90% which is ok and I can deal with it.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Your input sounds like an advertisement 🙂

I uploaded a PDF with Arabic content, the site "PDF simple" wants me to pay, so it is not free as you mentioned!!

[jane-e]

I agree, @Zaid Al Hilali . He is putting the same link in multiple posts. Thanks for checking it out. It appears to be advertising.

Jane