Problem with content exported to PDF - text not recognized as separate words

[vivis10433457]

Hi,

We’ve been encountering a problem in our PDF files exported from INDD, where parts of the text aren’t recognized as separate words, despite having spaces in between.

The problem is visible when viewing the ‘content’ pane in Acrobat –

Most of the text is recognized as separate words:

But some parts appear as a block or unit:

How can we ‘break up’ these blocks of text into separate words through INDD? And what’s causing some words to be recognized as blocks while others are correctly recognized as separate?

Many thanks for your help

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi @vivis10433457,

We are sorry for the delay in response, and thank you for reaching out. A few more details would be helpful-

• The version of InDesign and the OS details of your machine.
• Is it possible for you to share the file with us so that we can check on our end? If yes, please upload the file to a shared location such as CC or Dropbox and share the URL with me over a private message.

We will try our best to help.

Thanks,

Harshika

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are all of your spaces equivalent (ASCII 20, or the equivalent in your alphabet/font files), or are different space characters used (for example, for proportional positioning)? PDF may not recognize alternate space characters as such.

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[vivis10433457]

Hi,

Thanks for the answer.

We checked and there is no difference between the problematic and non-problematic text.

Do you have any other ideas aobut what may be causing the problem?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm afraid that's my one idea about the problem. If Willi's suggestion to export a tagged PDF doesn't solve the issue, I'd still be looking at some anomaly of how the PDF is handling that language and font. It seems that RTL languages bring a whole host of glitches like this if everything isn't set up just right.

You are viewing this in Acrobat Reader, though? Not any third-party reader?

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[vivis10433457]

Thanks for your time and effort !

[Willi Adelberger]

Did you export PDFs with tags? You schould do so as tags help to recognize columns, paragraphs and words. There is such an option in the PDF export windows.

[vivis10433457]

Thanks, we're trying this option.

[Laubender]

Hi @vivis10433457 ,

are you using some tracking on the problematic blocks of text?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[vivis10433457]

Hi,

We aren't using tracking on the problematic text. Any other ideas?

Thank you very much!

[Frans v.d. Geest]

I see the Span code container, it is important whats IN the Span code container, as far as I can see the spaces are there between the words. Span happens when a Character style is applied for instance or, as Uwe suggested character formatting like tracking is applied.

That said, Span are mostly not a problem, so can you tell us what the problem is you encounter: what goes 'wrong' in your opinion? Regarding export as Tagged PDF, that of course will not 'solve' anything, my guess is that it is already a Tagged PDF 😉