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Ganesh_JI
Inspiring
October 23, 2017
Answered

In PDF I have 3 spaces in between the word but while exporting that pdf to word that 3 spaces converted to single space anyone faced this issue. How to i retain word file as per pdf without missing 3 spaces.

  • October 23, 2017
  • 10 replies
  • 19071 views

In PDF I have 3 spaces in between the word but while exporting that pdf to word that 3 spaces converted to single space anyone faced this issue. How to i retain word file as per pdf without missing 3 spaces.

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Correct answer Dov Isaacs

You were already given the correct answer above:

         Acrobat doesn't know it's three spaces. It isn't actually spaces, just a gap. Probably nothing you can do.

          &

          If the file is not tagged Acrobat has to guess and may guess wrong. No work around.

The fact is that PDF is not a source document file format, but rather, a final form file format. What you see in Word, for example has the full context of characters in words in sentences in paragraphs in articles, etc. What PDF has is simply runs of text of 1 or more characters at a particular location in a particular font and style with a particular rotation and size. Sometimes, these runs of text include space characters and sometimes, especially when text is justified, not! In the latter case, space characters are replaced by advancing to a new location instead of explicit use of space characters.

Word=>PDF=>Word is not an identity operation and due to the nature of PDF lacking context, the differences you see may be large or small.

When PDF is tagged (an option when creating the PDF file from Office, for example), an attempt is made to put context of the original content into the PDF file, but lacking such tagging information, Acrobat has to guess what the spacing from one text run to another really consists of in terms of space characters from the empty spaces.

Bottom line, try tagging when creating the PDF and see if that makes a difference when exporting PDF back to Word.

          - Dov

10 replies

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
December 8, 2017

Hi isaacs

Thanks for your time.

Okay this issue was fixed now, but now it retain the space even though text was keep as unjustified.

Thanks

Ganesh.r

Digital Wiz
Participant
August 11, 2021

I was able to enter a non-breakable space using asci under windows.You can add as many of these as you want and acrobat displays them as a space.

 

  1. You must have a numeric keyboard.
  2. Hold down the ALT key.
  3. Type 0160 on the numeric keyboard.
  4. Release the ALT key.

 

 

Good luck

Legend
December 8, 2017

You mean you added tags later? Won’t help.

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
December 8, 2017

Hi

while creating PDF I checked the option Tagged PDF

Dov Isaacs
Legend
December 8, 2017

Is the text paragraph justified, i.e. justified on both the left and right margins? That would cause each inter-word space to vary and would result in spacing be done without space characters!

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
December 8, 2017

Eventhough we tried as tagged pdf we also have the same issue, we can't able to retain the space.

Thanks

Ganesh.R

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
December 8, 2017

Hi Girija

Any luck on the above issue

Thanks

Ganesh.R

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
December 8, 2017

You were already given the correct answer above:

         Acrobat doesn't know it's three spaces. It isn't actually spaces, just a gap. Probably nothing you can do.

          &

          If the file is not tagged Acrobat has to guess and may guess wrong. No work around.

The fact is that PDF is not a source document file format, but rather, a final form file format. What you see in Word, for example has the full context of characters in words in sentences in paragraphs in articles, etc. What PDF has is simply runs of text of 1 or more characters at a particular location in a particular font and style with a particular rotation and size. Sometimes, these runs of text include space characters and sometimes, especially when text is justified, not! In the latter case, space characters are replaced by advancing to a new location instead of explicit use of space characters.

Word=>PDF=>Word is not an identity operation and due to the nature of PDF lacking context, the differences you see may be large or small.

When PDF is tagged (an option when creating the PDF file from Office, for example), an attempt is made to put context of the original content into the PDF file, but lacking such tagging information, Acrobat has to guess what the spacing from one text run to another really consists of in terms of space characters from the empty spaces.

Bottom line, try tagging when creating the PDF and see if that makes a difference when exporting PDF back to Word.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
November 30, 2017

Any update for the above said issue.

Regards

Ganesh.R

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
November 17, 2017

Hi Girija

I can't able to share the original source file, but I share  the sample by using the place holder text, and mark my comments in that pdf itself, and I share that path to you. Please check and let us know its okay for you for checking purpose.

Actual issue

In this place I have 3 to 4 space between the words. If we copy and paste that 2 words in acrobat finder "restiorrum cone" it removes the extra space between the word and retain only one space. If we extract that pdf to word in this cases also it remove the exra space

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Thanks

Ganesh.R

girijaAgarwal
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 17, 2017

I have sent the issue for re-investigation and would get back to you as soon as i have an update.

girijaAgarwal
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 8, 2017

Could you please share the pdf file and the output ?

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
November 8, 2017

Here it goes

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I just send the sample file for checking

In Indesing

I gave 5 space in first line after 1 -- It convert to tab if we save that pdf to word

I gave 3 space in second line after 1 -- It convert to single space if we save that pdf to word

If we copy and paste the first line from this pdf there will be single space only after 1.

Thanks

Ganesh.R

girijaAgarwal
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 8, 2017

Thanks for your response.

I have forwarded this issue to the concerned team. We will get back to you as soon as we have a solution handy.

Thanks for your patience and support!!

Legend
October 25, 2017

If the file is not tagged Acrobat has to guess and may guess wrong. No work around.

a_C_student16379412
Inspiring
October 23, 2017

I made a small test file. If I convert to PDF using the Adobe PDF Maker I lose spaces, but if I save-as PDF from Word, all spaces are retained. So, maybe that will work for you too. I am using Office 16 and Acrobat DC on Windows 7.

Ganesh_JI
Ganesh_JIAuthor
Inspiring
October 25, 2017

I need to extract the text from PDF to word and retain the space as per PDF in extracted word file. not word to pdf.

Legend
October 23, 2017

Acrobat doesn't know it's three spaces. It isn't actually spaces, just a gap. Probably nothing you can do.