Unable to search for arabic words in a pdf document

[M5F98]

I am using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. 

I have an arabic text in pdf document in which I am unable to search for words. No words in the document are found even though they do exist.

I will appreciate any help as to why I cannot search for words in the document.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Can you make sure that your text is not an image, or outlined?

It could be related to the fonts used in the PDF, let us know what are the fonts used in the document by going to the following menu… File > Properties, then click on the "Fonts" tab to see the list of Arabic fonts. To make it easier for you, do provide screenshot of the list.

[M5F98]

It's not an image, but I don't know if it's outlined or not

[try67]

What happens when you select the text, copy it and then paste it in an editor, like Word? Does it come out looking like it should?

[M5F98]

If I copy it and paste it, I will have unreadeable characters

[try67]

Then the font encoding in the PDF file is bad.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Apparently, the font is not a genuine Arabic font. I mean it is like AXT fonts in the past where the character drawing is an Arabic character shape but the font table is not Arabic. In the past with AXT fonts, we couldn't search either.

If you have original InDesign or MS. Word document, you may use other Arabic fonts that you purchased or that came with your Adobe subscription.

[HillaryFOliverira]

I have exactly the same issue file a .pdf file with Arabic and Russian text. I could not find a solution yet, the files were created with Adobe Illustrator.  Does someone have any guesses?   

[Zaid Al Hilali]

What do you see in the font section, are there any fonts listed there? If not, then the text in your document were outlined, hence unsearchable.

This is a sample of a font list…

[HillaryFOliverira]

Yes, I can see the fonts used, but I cannot search for words. When I try to copy the text I have this unreadable characters:
  
   
 
  





[HillaryFOliverira]

The pdf was made using Adobe Illustrator. I don't know if AI has some kind of difficulty dealing with Arabic texts. 

[Zaid Al Hilali]

In regards to your original question that text is unsearchable, I can see that the font in the document is Simplified Arabic, this font is a strictly Windows font that doesn't exist on Mac machines. If your Machine is a Mac, I believe the text in your PDF will not appear correctly, hence unsearchable. If you're on a Windows machine, then the content should be searchable, but then I believe something else preventing you from searching the content.

As for copying Arabic text in order to use it elsewhere, this is yet another unsupported PDF issue which many users have discussed many times on this forum. See although Acrobat do support Arabic in some areas, yet few features don't support Arabic at all, unfortunately, at least for the time being as Acrobat Team do say they're considering to fix it.

[Samer_M]

Hi Zaid, I'm using Adobe Arabic, but it is not searchable. It seems that Adobe Acrobat didn't fix the problem, even with their font.

best regards

[Zaid Al Hilali]

عزيزي سامر

اكون ممنون لو تشاركني ولو بصفحة من المستند لفحصها، حيث انني مهتم بالامر واود مساعدتك وبنفس الوقت ابلاغ ادوبي ان لزم

[Samer_M]

شكراً زيد لردك

لقد انشئت صفحة جديدة بنفس الخط (لأن الصفحة القديمة انشئت عام ٢٠١٩) ومازالت المشكلة موجودة

شكراً لك مجدداً

[Zaid Al Hilali]

كلامك صحيح، انا بحثت عن كلمة موجودة ولم اجدها في اكروبات. قمت بفتح مستند البي دي اف مباشرة في الستريتور، والبحث كان ناجحاً في الالستريتور، لتجربة الامور اكثر، قمت بنسخ النص من الستريتور ولصقه في انديزاين ومن هناك اخرجت بي دي اف الذي ارفقته هنا والبحث كان ناجحاً في اكروبات، لذا يبدو لي ان البي دي اف الذي يخرج من الستريتور يصاب بهذه المشكلة

في المستند المرفق ادناه استخدمت خطين للتجربة وكلاهما ناجحان في البحث في الاكروبات، طبعاً انا هنا لا أطلب منك تغيير اسلوب عملك، بقدر ما أنا احاول ان اجد اين تكمن المشكلة، لذا في المحصلة النهائية ، اعتقد ان المشكلة في البي دي اف وليس في الاكروبات مع انه كلا المنتجين من ادوبي

[Samer_M]

فعلا المشكلة من الاليستريتور 🙂 مع اني استخدم نسخة الشرق الاوسط مع دعم للعربية

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Dear Samer, I posted this issue on the Adobe Bug report portal. Your vote on the post as well as other users is necessary to bring an attention to the issue.

[Samer_M]

Thank You, Zaid!

voting done.