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Distiller 7.0 ps to pdf text converted to glyphs

caffeine
Registered: Aug 15 2007
Posts: 2

Hi all,

Apologies, my Adobe knowledge is limited so bear with me.

Basically the situation is thus:

- We receive a Postscript file for a print job every day.
- We convert that PS file into a PDF document
- We catalog/index a months worth for searching purposes (large documents).

When I first set this up years ago we used Ghostscript for the conversion (am I allowed to mention that here?) as I didn't have a copy of Distiller handy. We then indexed the documents (a later addition) using Adobe 5.0. All was fine.

We have since upgraded in our corporate world to Adobe 7 Professional and here the problems start.

When Distiller converts the file the vast majority of the text (everything except the address field actually) is not stored as text. Depending on the Distiller options it is either saved as unprintable characters when copied/pasted, or character codes. Still views/prints fine, but the document is not searchable in any way as it cannot match the text.

I have no doubt that this is almost by design as it is probably the correct method to create reliable print documents in PDF, but doesn't really suit our purposes.

Is there any settings within Distiller or Acrobat, or anything I should be looking for in the original PS file to prevent this?

If any further information is required I'm more than happy to post whatever is needed.

Cheers,

Caff.

lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
It sounds as though this issue my be caused by malformed data (postscript operators and missing operands) in the original font. Sometimes very old fonts cause this issue. Earlier version of Acrobat ignored this, however Acrobat 7 detects this and prevents the font from loaded for security and stability reasons.

There is more information on this available at:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=325165&sliceId=2

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.