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Simple edits with TouchUp Text Tool causes text shifting in PDF

Forum Index > General Acrobat Topics > Simple edits with TouchUp Text Tool causes text shifting in PDF
2009-05-26 09:28:43
janericster
Registered: May 26 2009
Posts: 7

Just curious if anyone has had problems with this tool in version 9 (even 9.1.1).

We use the TouchUp text tool a lot to make small quick fixes in documents that are given to us (we don't have the native files), or even with our own files that have been combined into a master document and don' t have time before a deadline to go back to the source and repeat the entire conversion process.

I have narrowed the problem to mostly Microsoft Word files that contain tables which are "printed" to a PDF file using the standard File > Print menu. The "Convert to Adobe PDF" macro command works fine since it renders the tables differently (each cell is a separate text block in the PDF, whereas the standard print to PDF merges all the column data into one text block, which makes the problem easily reproducible).

If we then do a minor text edit (change just one or two characters), everything looks fine. But the problem is when we resave the PDF, then the columns in a table all shift to the left and overlap each other, while others have characters that completely disappear! Sometimes you have to refresh the page to see the problem happen.

This is a critical issue since many users have done their edits and see no problems, continue to another page where there might not be a table and do another edit, save the PDF and don't notice any problems since the text in a table may be on another page not currently displayed on screen.

We now have to carefully review every single page AFTER a resave is done to check for this problem.

This was not happening with Acrobat 8 Pro.

I've logged this as a bug on Adobe's web site weeks ago but not sure if they will address it in a future maintenance release or not.

Eric

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.1.1, Windows
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2009-06-02 00:31:28
#1
mkashif
Registered: Nov 5 2008
Posts: 10
Can you send a sample PDF file?
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2009-06-02 19:29:03
#2
janericster
Registered: May 26 2009
Posts: 7
Not to worry...Adobe tech engineering finally responded to me by email and they have confirmed that it is a bug in Acrobat 9. They have it on their "list" and hopefully an upcoming fix will be on the way.

They also confirmed that the only workaround is to use the "Convert to PDF" when creating PDFs from MS Word...
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2009-06-05 10:54:45
#3
stawel9347
Registered: Jun 5 2009
Posts: 1
Ahh... thanks for that.
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2009-06-05 17:56:53
#4
newtlover (not verified)
janericster wrote:
Not to worry...Adobe tech engineering finally responded to me by email and they have confirmed that it is a bug in Acrobat 9. They have it on their "list" and hopefully an upcoming fix will be on the way.They also confirmed that the only workaround is to use the "Convert to PDF" when creating PDFs from MS Word...
Thank you
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2009-06-11 10:49:38
#5
cpsulli
Registered: Jun 11 2009
Posts: 2
Similar problem here however it does not have to be in a table. Once you change a character with the touch up text tool and resave it the formatting screws up. For example, a word will have two or three spaces put into the middle of it or two letters of a word will overlap.
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2009-08-24 15:12:54
#6
janericster
Registered: May 26 2009
Posts: 7
Two updates later (version 9.1.3), and the bug still exists.... :(
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2010-10-25 09:44:43
#7
SueKlein
Registered: Oct 25 2010
Posts: 1
Are there any updates to this bug fix?
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2010-12-27 14:44:04
#8
mohair
Registered: Dec 27 2010
Posts: 1
We are using 9.4.1 and are still having issues with the touch up tool.
example of what using the touch up tool did to the entire document here:

"fund for emergency use by state agencies" is what it should look like however after using the touch up tool on one line the entire document now has odd spacing. "f und for em ergency us e by s tate ag encies." is how it looks now.

Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

Mary

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2011-01-19 08:44:34
#9
laurencej
Registered: Jan 19 2011
Posts: 5
I've also been experiencing the same problem, however I've just found a solution that works fine for me. The post linked below is what led me to the solution. Rather than embedding the font, remove the option to embed it, select the text you wish to edit and display the properties then untick the embed box. Upon saving the document the rest of the documents formatting remains intact! I'm using Adobe Acrobat Standard v9.0.0. Hope this helps!

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/8.0/Standard/help.html?content=WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7c75.html
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2011-01-20 09:10:31
#10
heynorton
Registered: Jan 20 2011
Posts: 1
Just had this same issue running 9.3.3 doesnt seem like they are paying any attention to this issue.
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2011-02-24 14:50:46
#11
Excelsior731
Registered: Feb 24 2011
Posts: 1
I would also like to know if there are any updates to this problem. My document is right-and-left justified and all I have to do is replace one character and save it, and it's now left-justified and ragged right. And several of the words in the document "smushed" together with overlapping characters. I don't expect the touchup text tool to be able to handle major editing, but changing one character shouldn't create all these problems.
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