Gibberish: exporting pdf to word is gibberish - HELP??

[kriesemp]

Why is my pdf exported to word coming out as gibberish??

[akagarg]

Hi,

Could you please let us know the issue you are facing while exporting pdf to word?

Regards,

Akanksha

[kriesemp]

I’m trying to convert a pdf to word. When I open the new doc, it is all symbols.

[Private info removed. -Mod.]

[try67]

It's most likely the font encoding in the file is incorrect, which is why you're getting gibberish when you export it to another format.

Does the same happen if you select text from the file, copy it and then paste it into an application like Notepad, for example?

PS. Don't reply via email if it includes your full contact details, please.

[Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted solution]

As suggested by Try67, if you get the same results when you copy and paste, then the reason is an encoding issue, and there is very likely not much you can do about it. The only way around this is to export your PDF file to e.g. 600dpi TIFF images, then import these images back into Acrobat. You can then run OCR (either on it's own, or as part of the export to Word function) to convert these images into text. You may not get a 100% correct representation of the text in your document, but it will be much better than what you are getting right now.

I've seen some instances mentioned of where running "Autotag Document" does fix such issues, but I don't have any first hand experience with this method. You will find this function by brining up the tools search function in Acrobat DC and type in "tag" (it's in the "Accessibility" set of tools).

[erica.mountain]

Thank you so much! This worked for me!!