Garbled Characters when try to open a PDF in the Adobe Reader

Thanks for reporting this. We understand how frustrating it can be to see garbled or unreadable characters when opening a PDF, especially when other apps like Foxit or Chrome’s built-in viewer display it just fine.

Why Acrobat Might Show Garbled Text While Others Don’t:

This behavior often comes down to how different PDF viewers handle missing or non-embedded fonts:

• Adobe Acrobat and Reader follow strict PDF standards — if the required fonts are not embedded in the file, Acrobat expects them to be present on your system. If they’re missing, it won’t try to “guess” substitutions, and this can result in unreadable characters (especially for non-Latin scripts or symbol fonts).

• In other words, Garbled characters often point to missing or non-embedded fonts in the PDF file itself. If the PDF creator did not embed the required fonts, Acrobat (or any PDF viewer) may try to substitute them, which can lead to incorrect or unreadable text, especially for non-Latin scripts.

• Other viewers (like Foxit, Chrome, Edge, etc.) may use font substitution more aggressively. They attempt to match the missing fonts using system fonts or web fonts, which can make the file look correct, but this isn’t guaranteed to be accurate, especially for specialized or stylized fonts.

Reinstalling fonts on your system typically won’t resolve the issue unless the missing font matches the original font used when the PDF was created and is being substituted locally, which is rarely predictable.

To help troubleshoot further, could you please confirm:

1. Are you seeing this issue with one specific PDF or with multiple PDFs?

2. Was this PDF created by you or received from someone else?

3. Are you able to check if the fonts are embedded in the file? You can do this by:

• Opening the PDF in Acrobat

• Go to File > Properties > Fonts tab

• Let us know what fonts are listed there, and whether they show as Embedded or Embedded Subset

If possible, and if the content isn’t sensitive, feel free to share a sanitized version of the file for closer inspection.

So while it may seem like Acrobat is at fault, it’s actually enforcing more reliable font handling based on what the PDF creator included (or didn’t include).

Best regards,
Tariq | Adobe Community Team