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Mrils987
New Participant
May 18, 2023
Question

Garbled output from PDF to Excel export

  • May 18, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 7677 views

Whenever I try to select sections of a pdf file and "export selection as", the whole file with the toolbar on the side, or even just a single word, and convert it to an Excel workbook, the result comes out as complete nonsense characters. I can copy and paste parts of single lines just fine, but exporting the text results in gibberish. I did a bit of digging and discovered that part of the problem may be the T3 font that's used in the PDF has caused grief in other situations, but never really found a fix for exporting pdf info to excel. Has anyone else encountered this before? I'm including snippets of input and output text as an example of one part of one line.

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    1 reply

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Brainiac
    May 18, 2023

    I think there are 2 problems here:

    1. A PostScript T3 font was used. This is an advanced form of font that isn't widely accepted in some document file formats. Is it possible to use a regular Unicode/OpenType font in the spreadsheet?
    2. The font wasn't embedded into the PDF when it was made from the Excel spreadsheet. Probably either an incorrect method of making a PDF was used (such as File / Print / PDF) or the setting wasn't set to embed all fonts in the PDF Export options.

     

    Suggestion: swap out the T3 font for a normal font on the computer system, and re-export the PDF from Excel. If possible, use the Acrobat PDF Maker toolbar in Excel and check that all fonts will be embedded (subsetted if less than 100%).

     

    |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
    M
    Mrils987Author
    New Participant
    May 18, 2023

    I think I wasn't clear enough. I am getting the PDF file from an outside source I have no control over. Then I'm taking the PDF text contents and converting it to an Excel Workbook. I have no control over the T3 font on the PDF, that's how it's presented to me. 

      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Brainiac
      May 19, 2023

      Ok, that explains things better.

       

      First, when you export a PDF from Acrobat to Excel, it will export the entire PDF, nor portions or selections of it. So it's all or nothing.

       

      Once the spreadsheet is exported, select the text in Excel and reformat it using a standard font from your system. That should remove all references to the T3 font. See if that clears up the gibberish text.

       

      Questions:

      What version of Adobe Acrobat are you using:

      • Standard or Pro
      • Version and build number
      • Mac or Windows

       

      |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
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