illustrator opens PDF with corrupted characters

USE ILOVE PDF TO CONVERT THE POWERPOINT TO PDF THEN OPEN IT IN ILLUSTARTOR

Same issue in 2024. I was able to use Adobe InDesign to fix the issue by linking the pdf on a page and then exported a new pdf, setting the pdf output to my liking. Then I was able to open the resulting pdf in Adobe Illustrator and the text was back to readable characters. (note that the correct fonts must be loaded in your system or in Adobe Creative Suite for it to retain typesytles.) My theory is that the pdf was set to "Read Only" and when exporting from InDesign it reformated in such a way to re-establish editability. 

This is still an issue in 2022. Thankfully I cant trust Affinity Publisher to pull through with a multipage PDF with charts and graphs that I need to later be able to edit the text (without going back to the MS suite, export, place, etc.).

Since this opens near flawlessly in Affinity Publisher, looks like the default answer of blaming Microsoft is no longer valid, as some have noted. Your mileage may vary but this workflow works for me on macOS 12.3, Affinity Publisher 1.10.4, both on Apple silicon.

you rock

Hi there,

I had the same issue, when I tried to open an Excel-generated PDF in Adobe illustrator. After reading all the posts here and trying here and there, I figured a way out: instead of open, but place your pdf file; after embedding into AI, then you will retain all the original contents, and edit as you see fit.

Hope this helps!

Andrew

Convert original PDF to PDF/A. Open the PDF/A file in Illustrator. A dialogue box should now pop-up noting missing font (in my case, Ariel). Change the font to an Adobe font (in my case the Ariel with the Adobe symbol next to it). You should now able able to edit the PDF in Illustrator without the strange corrupted character symbols.

This may be an old question but many still encounter the problem of getting Microsoft table files (Word, Excel) into Illustrator.

Mine was to have a Table made in Word, styled (re-designed/re-done, if you will) in Illustrator—CS6 in my case—meaning, that I needed the table text data editable in Illustrator as well.

a. FIrst, I isolated the Word table and saved it as another file and saved as PDF; also printed as PDF.

b. Second, I copied the Word table and pasted it in Excel and saved it as and Excel file from which I saved and printed as PDF.

In both instances above—and like most of you— I've tried some solutions here, even checking for Calibri or any MS fonts that might have been used or carried over to avoid corrupting data entries like "#D)9!" in OP's post (luckily, Arial was used, so I didn't encounter that in this particular project). However, the Table data was converted into un-editable text outlines (you can edit its color or size). As mentoned, I needed the text to be editable as well.

So I've been trying out several workflow combinations offered here and elsewhere for 2 days until I realized this morning that I could:

• Place the Excel file I created ("b," above), into InDesign (CS6) and;
• Export it as PDF. (You have to have InDesign as in my case.)

Then,

• I opened the InDesign-exported PDF in Illustrator and voila, the table formatting is untouched and the text characteristics are preserved.

From there, I did the table design in Illustrator as necessary.

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I guess having a Microsoft product (Word, Excel) "intervene" in our thought or work process seem to complicate the process but going back to some basic Adobe workflows worked for me. I hope this helps.

Hi,

the problem started when I changed from Excel 2011 to Excel for Mac version 15.

First Microsoft started to use Calibri font and with Excel 2011 I could change the sheet to Arial, save it as pdf.

I could open the pdf with Illustrator 6 or CC and it looked normal. I could change fonts and changed line, colors.

I use Illustrator to make look graphs nice for the financial publications I work on.

To avoid all the problems written above I would suggest go back to Excel 2011, click right on the picture and save as pdf.

It works good for me.

I had a similar problem:

I had a pdf report given to me by a coworker which they wanted to see mocked up in a different layout, when I opened the pdf in illustrator each character appeared as a box with an x in it.  The font used was Arial.  To fix this problem, I used the following steps:

1. Make sure the document is closed everywhere

2. Open the document in Acrobat Pro

3. Extract each page you need to edit as its own document (through the 'organize pages' feature in Acrobat)

4. Open each single page document in Acrobat

5. Select 'Edit Text and Images'

6. Select each text box individually and change the font to an adobe font.  I used 'Adobe Garamond Pro', I have only tested this with fonts which are named 'Adobe xxxx'.

7. Save and close each individual page in Acrobat

8. Open each individual page in Illustrator.  You should now have a more editable document.

Please can someone answer this question?  The pdf should open in Illustrator without the text all being corrupted.

What is the solution to this?