Thai Font error After Exporting

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Hello Indesign Community,

We have been using Indesign for our work research paper for 3 years now, we have to export it to pdf and upload on our website to make it publicly available. However, we have the font error problems, in this case we mostly use fonts in Thai Language.

After exporting, everything looks perfectly fine like in the pic. 

However, if we copied&pasted it elsewhere or try to use ctrl+f funtion to look for keywords. We coundn't find a single match as all the fonts are in the wrong orders and abnormal styles as attached some lines, 

This causes us lots problens as we want to spread knowledge and info to all audience, but our work has never been showed up on the web browser as it cannot find the matching keywords from the engins to our works.  I tried changing fonts but still have the same problems, FYI, we never have this problems when we use just Microsoft Words and English Words are not affected. 

Looking forward to your suggestions, maybe some fonts setting or what kind of fonts should we look for. Thank you.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thank you for sharing the details. Could you let us know:

1. The version of InDesign you’re using.
2. Your operating system (e.g., Windows 11, macOS Ventura).
3. If this issue occurs with only this file or other files as well.

Additionally, could you share a screen recording of your workflow, from working on the file to exporting the PDF? This will help us better understand the issue and provide a solution.

Looking forward to your response!

Thanks, 

Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Thanks for your reply

1. I'm using and recently updated to Version 19.5.1.

2. Windows 11

3. This happens to all files.

I attached the workflow here, You will see there are some warnings on the font JS Jindara, yet I tried changing fonts but the issues still occurs.

[BobLevine]

How are you viewing and testing this PDF? Doesn't everything work okay in Acrobat?

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Im testing it on Acrobat, the fonts are all in wrong orders when I copied and pasted out to Notepad. Also I could not find asingle matching words by crtl F on Acrobat

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thanks for providing the recording. After reviewing the workflow, it seems like the issue is occurring due to a font compatibility problem when copying from Acrobat. The issue may be related to how the font is being handled in Acrobat after export from InDesign.

Here are some steps you can try:

1. It might be related to how Acrobat is rendering the fonts. Please try embedding the fonts during the PDF export (in InDesign) by following the steps in the provided screenshots.
2. Ensure that you are not downsampling or compressing any fonts in the export settings.

   Reference: 

3. If the issue persists with JS Jindara, try a different font and see if that resolves the issue. Some fonts may not render correctly in Acrobat.

If the problem continues, we can try some additional troubleshooting steps. Let me know how it goes!

Thanks,

Abhishek Rao 

[Thai Customs Brussels]

I tried the suggested steps, tho I couldn't check the "creat acrobat layers" box. The issues still occurs.

I also tried changing fonts to even the most basic one like Tahoma, the Thai characters after rendering still out of place. 

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thank you for the update! Since the issue persists, please try these steps to resolve it:

1. Embed Fonts Fully:

   • In InDesign, go to File > Export > Adobe PDF (Print).
   • In the Advanced tab, set "Subset fonts when percent of characters used is less than" to 0%. Reference: 

2. Enable World-Ready Composer:

   • Select all text, then go to Paragraph Styles > Justification and set it to Adobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer for better handling of Thai scripts.

Please try these and let me know if the issue is resolved!

Thanks,
Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Thank you Abhishek,

I tried your methods, the text looks better and more in the right order, 

Thogh after, copy and pasted elsewhere, the issues still occur. I notice that the problems is with the Vowel characters like -่, -ำ -็  etc. that they always double.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thank you for the update and the screenshots! I’m glad the text is displaying better in InDesign, but I understand the frustration with the persistent issue when copying and pasting.

The doubling of Thai vowel characters during copy-paste is often related to Unicode compatibility. Please try below:

1. In InDesign, go to Preferences > Clipboard Handling and set "Paste" to "All Information" instead of "Text Only." This helps preserve formatting and encoding when pasting text.
2. Test in a Plain Text Editor: Copy the text into a plain-text editor (like TextEdit in plain-text mode) and paste it back into InDesign. This can sometimes strip unwanted encoding issues.
3. When pasting text into other programs, use "Paste Without Formatting" to ensure only the plain characters transfer, avoiding unwanted rendering issues.

Let me know if these suggestions help or if you continue experiencing issues, I’ll be happy to assist further!

Best, 

Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

thanks for putting up with me, sadly it's still not working for me.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thank you for your patience. I understand how challenging this is. Since the issue persists, it’s likely a deeper Unicode rendering or font encoding problem.

Would you mind trying:

1. Use OpenType Fonts
   Switch to OpenType Thai fonts with full Unicode support, such as "Noto Sans Thai" or "Sarabun."

2. Update PDF Settings
   In Export > Adobe PDF (Print), check "Unicode" under the tagging options in the Advanced tab for better character mapping.

3. Test in Acrobat Settings
   Open the PDF in Acrobat, go to Preferences > Content Editing, and enable "Use local fonts" to ensure Acrobat is reading the embedded fonts correctly.

If the problem still exists, could you share the .INDD file (with sensitive info removed) for further testing? I’ll gladly assist!

Best,
Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Hello, it stil doesn't work so I'm willing to share the .indd with you. There is no sensitive info inside as the info is meant to be public. Still, I don't want to keep this file hanging here forever so i will take it down as sson as the matter is resolved.

Looking fored to hearing back from you Abhishek!

<Removed the file due to privacy concern>

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,

Thanks for your message. Since you mentioned privacy concerns, I’ve removed the file from the community. I recommend sharing a packaged document instead, as it will allow you to send all the necessary files securely and organized. You can follow the instructions here to create a package: Create a Package in InDesign.

Once the package is ready, feel free to share it with me through Direct Message in the community. You can use public cloud services like Dropbox or WeTransfer to share the link.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Best,

Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

hello, sent you a private message. Did you receive it well?

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Thai Customs Brussels,  

Thank you for letting me know! Yes, I’ve received your private message and the file. I’ll review it and get back to you as soon as possible.  

Best,  
Abhishek Rao  

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Hello, any updates or some trobleshooting on the files?

Thank you

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @THBrussels,

Thank you for your patience and for sharing the file with us.

To further troubleshoot, could you please try the following steps:

1. Test in the PDF Viewer: Open the exported PDF and attempt to type the specific Thai characters (e.g., -่, -ำ, -็) into the application you're using to view the PDF (such as Adobe Acrobat). If you're able to type the characters successfully, it means that the application is able to recognize and render the fonts correctly.

2. If you are unable to type the characters, it could be that the application doesn't fully support the font, which may lead it to convert the text into an image or render it incorrectly. This is a known issue with certain PDF viewers not properly handling complex fonts, especially for non-Latin scripts like Thai.

Let me know the results of these tests.

Thanks again for your cooperation,

Best,

Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Hey Abhishek, thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure about your instrction to type, so I tried the Acrobat Pro fuction to type-in and edit text to test and I attaced the sceen record below. It shows that typing Thai characters in JS Jindara works well in the app, yet the characters that were originally put in InDesign were in incorrect order and always double vowels characters.

Hope this helps.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @THBrussels,

Thank you for sharing the screen recording and for your detailed explanation. I really appreciate your patience with this.

I tested your file by exporting it without compression through the export settings in InDesign, but unfortunately, I still wasn’t able to resolve the issue or find a workaround for the incorrect order and double vowel characters in Thai.

At this stage, I’ll need to escalate this to the product team for further investigation, as it seems to require a deeper dive into how InDesign is processing these characters and fonts. I’ll update you as soon as I receive any insights or next steps from the team.

Thanks again for your cooperation and understanding. I’ll keep you posted!

Best,

Abhishek Rao

[Thai Customs Brussels]

Thank you very much Abhishek. Really appreciate this and finger crossed. 

Do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @THBrussels,

Thank you for your kind response!

I wanted to share an update: the product team has been investigating the issue and suggested performing some additional testing with your help.

They’d like to know if you encounter the same issue when exporting the file from Illustrator using the same Thai font. Each application uses its own algorithm to process fonts, so this could provide more insight.

Additionally, the team tested copying the paragraph text from InDesign to a text editor like Notepad and comparing it with text copied from the exported PDF (via InDesign). They found that the PDF text includes unprocessed glyphs, resulting in unknown characters.

The team believes this requires Acrobat’s involvement to check how the text font is being processed on their end. Would you be able to create a post in the Acrobat Community to gather insights and assistance from their experts?

Let me know if you have any questions or need help creating the post! I’ll continue to coordinate on this issue.

Best,
Abhishek Rao

[BobLevine]

And why are you doing this when you have the original document? Copy/paste from Acrobat has never been all that great and I'm not so sure anything you do here is going to improve thing.

PDF is a final format and while editing has come a long way, it's still best to use the original document for any kind of work.

[Thai Customs Brussels]

For me the main concern is not about copying and pasting texts, but motly about the fact that our works are impossible to be shown on search engine as the keywords cannot match the text on the files.