Text from InDesign-created PDF's haphazardly refusing to cut and paste back into InDesign text frame

[Mrs5FEA]

Not posted here before but am stymied.  Have been using InDesign for about two years to create publications. As part of proofing process need to be cut text from PDFs and paste either into another document/email. Never a problem until today. But only on some pages throughout the document. In some cases I have facing pages where one works and the other doesn't. If I try to cut and paste the text from the pdf back into a new InDesign text frame I just get some random letters and heirogylphs (image). If pasted onto a document/email, nothing appears. This has never happened before, I'm doing nothing differently when creating PDFs for each page (as far as I know) and they're all set to be created in the way that they always have for the last couple of years. Can anyone help. I'm  not terribly technically minded and am worried this may cause a problem when the pdfs go to the printers.

[BobLevine]

This is certainly not an InDesign issue...it's a fact of life for PDFs. What you're trying to do is quite hit or miss. Save the PDF as a Word file and try it from there.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Good suggestion from @BobLevine 

Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat.

File / Export To / MS Word / Word Document .docx (not 97-2003).

Then open the Word.docx in Word and copy/paste the text you want into InDesign.

Or place/import the Word file into your InDesign layout the usual way.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Could also be a mixed set of fonts being used/substituted as the text goes from one file type to another.

[Laubender]

Could you attach a one page PDF where you see the issue so someone could test another workflow with Acrobat Pro DC?

There is Edit PDF workspace in Acrobat where you could select and copy text in a different way.

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Mrs5FEA]

Unfortunately I can't attach a problem page because of client confidentiality.  Whisper it on here but I don't use Acrobat to create and edit PDFs. However that can't be the issue. As I said, this problem happened for the first time ever yesterday after years of sometimes daily creating pages in the two systems. And  it's happening on one page of a double page spread, say p18 and not the other, P19. Both created in the identical way.  

[Laubender]

"…I don't use Acrobat to create and edit PDFs."

Well, that could contribute to the issue.

What application are you using?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Mrs5FEA]

That's why I didn't say originally as I knew people would immediately seize on that as the issue and I don't believe it is.  I've consulted the printers and sent them the offending examples and they believe it's a formatting issue within InDesgin but even they're not sure what's going on. I've stripped the page and brought it all in again and refomaatted from new and it's still happening on this page but not on the facing page.  For the record, however, I'm using PDFElements

Thanks