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Problem finding single accented letters

Forum|Forum|9 months ago
April 24, 2025
4 replies
4228 views

Hello,
In Acrobat version 2005.001.20438 (generated by InDesign 2025) I had to search for some single accented letters. Unfortunately, all non-accented letters are also found. For example: "à" also finds "a", "è", finds all "e" etc.
I attach a screenshot.
Have you encountered the same problem and a possible solution?
Thanks for the possible response.
I attach a screenshot.

Problem_Acrobat_singolar_accented_letters.pdf

PDF

Correct answer radzmar

Make sure you have the option for diacritics and accents set correctly in Acrobats preferences. When you have to change it, restart the app once to make tha changes work for the search function.

radzmarCorrect answer

Brainiac

Make sure you have the option for diacritics and accents set correctly in Acrobats preferences. When you have to change it, restart the app once to make tha changes work for the search function.

JR Boulay

Brainiac

It's a stroke of genius to have enabled by default this well-hidden preference with its incomprehensible wording (in French, at least)!

When I think that no one, including Adobe, has ever been able to give me the answer to this problem for all these years...

radzmar your the best!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

JR Boulay

Brainiac

This lack has persisted since the first versions of Acrobat, although it has been reported many times over the years.
However, there's no need for AI to do this, other software has been doing it very well for a long time...

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

U

Ute LeoneAuthor

Known Participant

Hi JR Boulay,
I honestly didn't notice. Thanks to you too.

try67

Brainiac

It doesn't seem there's a workaround for issue in Acrobat, but it is possible to search for only accented characters using a script, such as this (paid-for) tool I've developed that can highlight all the instances of the results using actual comments, not just an ad-hoc selection: https://www.try67.com/tool/acrobat-highlight-all-instances-of-a-word-or-phrase-in-a-pdf

U

Ute LeoneAuthor

Known Participant

Hi, TRY67,
thanks for the tip, I downloaded the trial version.

AnandSri

Community Manager

Hi TRY67,

I solved it with radzmir's suggestion. Thanks anyway for your availability.

Hi @Ute Leone!

We're glad to know that it worked for you, feel free to reach out if you need any assistance.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

T

Tariq Ahmad

Community Manager

Hi @Ute Leone,

Thank you for reaching out with your question.
If the document was exported as a flattened PDF, the following are my observations:

Acrobat’s OCR is optimized for word-level recognition, which often results in context-based encoding. That means searching for a full word like “résumé” might succeed, but a single letter like “é” could fail, as it may not be stored as a standalone Unicode character.

A couple of things you might try:

Check the font encoding using Preflight (in Acrobat Pro).
Copy and paste the letter from the PDF into a text editor — does it paste correctly, or appear as a space/symbol?
Re-OCR the document using a custom OCR setting that prioritizes searchable text (go to Scan & OCR > Recognize Text > In This File > Settings in Acrobat).

Note: What you’re observing seems to be related to how OCR engines, like the one in Acrobat, interpret and encode accented characters, especially when they appear as standalone letters.

If the document wasn't flattened, in that case, check if the fonts are properly embedded. Use the Preflight tool to check for font issues: https://adobe.ly/3Gq4yO2

~Tariq

try67

Brainiac

This does not seem to be a relevant reply to the issue. The file has not been OCRed, but created from InDesign.

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