TouchUp cannot create a text selection

Is the font embedded in your document for the text you are attempting to TouchUp?

Unfortunately this problem has been known about almost since Acrobat 9.0 was first released, but it still hasn't been fixed. As you note: if you scan in a document & OCR it, there appears to be no setting that allows the resultant text to be altered in any way. If you convert as "ClearScan", then if you try, you get the wretched "Accumulated text within the attempted selection area is rotated other than horizontal or vertical" message (& it takes a few clicks to get it to go away). Scanning to "Searchable image" just doen't let you touch up anyway.This is a substantial problem for many of us - I have used Acrobat to scan in many forms I get (I am a family doctor), and very many have misspellings. (This is on account of the low literacy levels in Health Service management in the UK these days.) Before 9.0, I used to be able to touch up these, before going on to add fields etc.; and then I could import patient data as XML to complete most of the form.

However this option has now gone in 9.0, and as it hasn't been addressed in recent updates, I think we must assume that Adobe have abandoned this functionality.

This leaves the possibility of scanning the form into an image editor, then adjusting the misspellings as images in some way; then converting to PDF, then OCRing. Very laborious. The alternative option is obviously to either roll back Acrobat to an earlier version; or to try Nuance or Nitro PDF tools instead. I don't know whether they will OCR & allow edits afterwards - perhaps someone could let us know?

Incidentally: the font embedding issue isn't really relevant. It's true that if you just try to use the Text Touchup tool straight off, you get a message about not having the right system font - which is inevitable as the ClearScan process produces fonts on the fly. However you used to be able to simply select the text then right click; choose "Properties"; then change the text to a close match from system fonts; then edit. But if you try this, that is when you get the "Accumulated text within the attempted selection area is rotated other than horizontal or vertical" message - and you can't change the font to a system one anymore. There does not appear to be any way round the problem by trying to change fonts, embedd/unembed, etc. Well, certainly no way I've discovered, nor many other users scattered about on various boards. I'd be very interested to hear if there is actually some working fix. (People seem to keep sending odd "ideas" without having actually gone as far as testing them. The problem is incredibly easy to produce, so I can't believe that Adobe aren't aware that the functionality has disappeared.)

After further experimenting: if you scan in a document then "ClearScan" OCR it in Acrobat 9.0, then save the document, & open it in Acrobat in version 8.0, you CAN select text, right click, change to a font you have on your system, then edit.
So the problem appears to be a bug that is resulting in v 9.0 triggering the "Accumulated text within the attempted selection area is rotated other than horizontal or vertical. TouchUp cannot create a text selection" error message, whenever you try to select text & get at the Properties dialog to change the font to one on your system. You can't get to the dialog to do it.
This being so, it might be system dependent. I am using XP SP3 (our medical software won't run on anything else). Fairly standard PC - twin monitors - x86. Possibly the problem doesn't arise on all platforms, but postings in various forums suggests that it is a common bug anyway.
So, Adobe, is it fixable please?

Sorry guys - rather having a conversation with myself here ...
More experimenting shows that this is NOT a problem on a laptop running Windows 7 RC. That is to say - on that machine, using Acrobat 9.0, after running ClearScan on a document, it IS possible to select text and get to the "Properties" dialog; alter the font to a system one; then touch up the text.
So it looks like the bug producing the "Accumulated text within the attempted selection area is rotated other than horizontal or vertical. TouchUp cannot create a text selection" dialog, & preventing access to the "Properties" dialog, is system-specific. Whether it affects all XP systems, or whether it's some quirk with my particular installation, I don't know yet. Although as I've mentioned, messages on this & other forums do suggest that it's quite a common problem. (Incidentally this is using 9.1.3 on both machines.)
Perhaps I'd better try it in a virtual machine next! - although Acrobat licensing issues may make this tricky, I don't know.

Simon - I found your "conversation" here after posting on more or less the same topic myself. I'm running the same process on my Mac and can confirm that the exact same problem exists on the Mac. I get the same error message.

It seems that correcting the OCR output on a scan is a rather fundamental requirement of Acrobat it seems insane that it just doesn't work!

On a side note I've just tried it on a good quality scan that was not rotated after scanning and it does seem to work. I may try re-scanning the problem one at the correct orientation just to eliminate one other variable.

Any suggestions welcome!

Unfortunately, I believe this is an issue with Clearscan and rotated text at this point.

I think the "rotated text" bit is a red herring actually. I can't seem to find any correlation with how rotated the text is, and how often the error occurs. Furthermore I have now find that sometimes - unpredictably - even on my XP machine - I can manage to change the font without "springing" the dialog. I have tried to work out what makes the difference; & it certainly DOESN'T seem to have anything with how rotated the text is. I can be working on exactly the same document and most times, the dialog pops up & I can't proceed; but maybe one time in 4 or 5, it works alright. I've tried to pin down what makes the difference that lets me succeed occasionally, but I can't unravel it. Very annoying!

I have the same "Accumulated text..." error message when trying to edit PDFs created using ARC GIS software. Acrobat 8 seemed to handle it ok. It works with text-based files (e.g., Word files converted to PDF), but the text associated with map files (e.g., changing the figure number in a title block) seem to confuse Version 9 (I am using 9.1.3). Any new insight from anyone?

Ok, I tried to Clearscan the PDF file, but got the same "accumulated text..." error message. Does it matter (not sure why it would) if the PDF is in an older version (e.g., Acrobat 7)?

Well, it actually works in earlier versions of Acrobat, if that's what you mean - right up to version 8.0. It's just 9.0 (including 9.2.0) that has the bug. Which is a pity, as in other ways ClearScan is quite impressive.
Actually I suspect you mean, will it work if the original scanned PDF (before trying any OCRing) is an earlier PDF file version. I don't think it makes any difference, unfortunately.

This problem is not confined to scanned documents, it can also occur on some documents created using DTP software and then converted to pdf using Acrobat. (Note: Adobe cannot blame the DTP, I use Creative Suite 5)

I am a professional technical author and over the last 30 years have written more than 300 manuals, ranging from single sheets to 500+ pages. I always set my conversions to Adobe 5 level because my clients are worldwide and do not always have access to the latest readers.

I now find that a large number of previously editable documents are no longer editable. It is not acceptable for a professional user to have to use 'fixes' and swap versions to carry out what are fundemental operations.
This is as much a debacle as Adobe 6 was (which I dumped in less than a month). Currently I deeply regret having "upgraded?" Acrobat 9 Pro.

As an aside, has any one come across the problem of trying to remove 9 and finding that it screws up re-installation of an earlier version? My wife (also a professional user) tried to uninstall, and then reload an earlier version. Not only did the old version not install properly, but 9 wouldn't re-install. In the end her IT manager spent a happy couple of hours manually editing her registry.

Is the font embedded in your document for the text you are attempting to TouchUp?

Hello
Is someone figured out how to fix this error?
I have same problem and I cant find any information how to fix it. This error pup-up before I can eaven choose to change font, if I dont have it.