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v3ktordotse
Participant
February 22, 2013
Answered

illustrator opens PDF with corrupted characters

  • February 22, 2013
  • 13 replies
  • 153324 views

Hi,

When i open a PDF in Illustrator the characters become corrupted. It looks like "#D)9! etc.

Apples preview and Acrobat shows the text right. But when opened in illustrator everything is wrong. The font I use is plain Arial.

Viktor

    Correct answer L_R_Smith

    Thanks hunterk53973462, I had the same issues "KRVA" described with a graph that was exported to pdf. I usually open in Illustrator to manipulate it. Sometimes the text turns into unreadable characters. Opened the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro, under Menu > Save As Other > Archivable PDF/A. Opened it with Illustrator retained readable text. I noticed one outlined line of text and another line of text was individually broken up into individual characters but the rest of the text was intact. Yeah!

    13 replies

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    S
    shoimthewoim
    Participant
    May 7, 2014

    I should add that the text appears correctly but as compound paths, so this work around may not be that useful if you need to retain the text editability.

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 7, 2014

      In order to outline a text you don't need this workaround. Instead place the file in Illustrator (don't embed) and then flatten transparency ("outline text" checked)

      S
      shoimthewoim
      Participant
      May 8, 2014

      As Larry already mentioned: avoid Calibri.

      In other cases (nor relevant for Excel) ligatures force outlining of text, so they need to be avoided.

      But sometimes even that won't help and you just have to live with it.


      In  my case, my co-author has embedded Excel charts in Word and I don't have access to the original data or charts. The charts use Cambria as the font for labels. I've taken the Word file, selected all and changed the font to Times by applying a new style. I've also selected some chart labels and changed the font from Cambria to Times. All the text that was changed from Calibri or Cambria to Times correctly displays as editable text in Illustrator now. All the text that remained in Cambria is corrupted.

      Thank you for your advice, Monika and Larry, and note that Cambria should join the list of fonts to avoid as well.

      Wish I was clever enough to figure out how to select all text within the embedded charts and change them all to Times or Helvetica.

      S
      shoimthewoim
      Participant
      May 7, 2014

      I experience the same issue. My workaround is to open the pdf in Acrobat and save it as eps. Illustrator (CS6 in my case) will open the eps file and the text will display correctly.

      My experience is consistent with Larry Schneider's answer in that my problem documents all come from MS Office using Calibri(Theme Body).

      I routinely use Illustrator to tidy up plots of scientific data which I originally create by printing and saving to pdf in other apps (mainly Kaleidagraph and Omnigraffle) and I have never had an issue with any of these files.

        C
        Criticalerror101
        Participant
        May 25, 2017

        I typically just stalk these forums, but I signed in to say THANK YOU. Most excellent workaround.

          Luke Jennings
          Luke Jennings
          Inspiring
          February 22, 2013

          Illustrator is not a universal PDF editor. You can usually open a PDF that was created in Illustrator (with Illustrator editing capabilities) but a PDF created from any other program is a risky. What is it you are trying to do?

          V
          v3ktordotseAuthor
          Participant
          February 22, 2013

          I did a presentation of a website in Illustrator with several art boards (pages) and saved as PDF.

          Unfortunately I opened and saved it in Acrobat because I needed to change the default view size to 100% 72 dpi.

          Now when I have to go back and open the PDF in Illustrator to make changes the characters in my PDF have become totally corrupted.

          Also Illustrator dont get the artboard/multiple pages concept. It only want to open one page.

          Guess the best solution is to stay away from PDF in the future and use Powerpoint or Keynote instead.

            Monika Gause
            Community Expert
            Monika GauseCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            February 22, 2013

            Did you save the PDF with Illustrator compatibility?

            You should, if you want to have the ability to edit the PDF later.

            I don't get your point about opening single pages of a multiple page PDF in Illustrator. You might want to explain what exactly you did.

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