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mikkel9310
Participant
February 11, 2020
Question

Weird jibberish characters in PDF

  • February 11, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 23419 views

I know there has been a lot of talk about this topic. BUT -


Why is it, that I have two similar PCs in my office - both run standard windows 10, and acrobat pro dc.

 

But on one of them some PDFs looks like jibberish - weird characters that don't make any sense.
It's not just from one source, that the PDFs are unreadable. 
Someone wrote that it was generated from companies using "not-adobe" programs to create their PDF, but thats not the case, since I have two PCs where one can read the PDFs and the other can't.

 

What is the solution - there has got to be one!

    4 replies

    JR Boulay
    Community Expert
    JR BoulayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 30, 2021

    Please, share a sample file otherwise we can only play guessing games.

    https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/sharing-pdfs.html

    Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Legend
      March 30, 2021

      When you export your PDFs from the source program, make sure to check the options to embed the fonts into the PDF.

      If the PDF is already made, you can embed the fonts into the PDF with Acrobat's Preflight utility. But you first have to ensure that the fonts called by the PDF are installed on your computer.

       

      All of the software companies are controlling their fonts, when and where you can use them, etc. One thing that's required is that the fonts are either embedded into the PDF or are available on your computer (and, of course, match those called by the PDF).

       

      Follow the steps outlined in my Oct. 5, 2019 answer here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/scrambled-text-when-viewing-pdf-documents-in-acrobat-standard-xi/m-p/10690381

       

      |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
        J
        jans81523976
        Participant
        March 29, 2021

        Same here 😕😕 any solutions?

        thanks

        JR Boulay
        Community Expert
        JR BoulayCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        February 11, 2020

        Be sure that this setting is the same on both:

         

        Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
          M
          mikkel9310Author
          Participant
          February 11, 2020

          It is - but still just jibberish

            B
            Błażej5FA2
            Participant
            February 25, 2021

            Hey, did you manage to solve this one? It started on my PC as well 😕😕

            JR Boulay
            Community Expert
            JR BoulayCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            February 11, 2020

            I guess a font issue.

            Be sure that your 2 PCs uses the same.

            Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
            M
            mikkel9310Author
            Participant
            February 11, 2020

            The thing is, they are both standard PCs with Windows 10 - no alterations at all - so basically the same. 
            If there is fonts missing on one PC, they should be missing on the other two - and which fonts should be missing?
            I mean, this is Adobe we're talking about. I (and others) should not have this problem!

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