Open PDF breaks words to individual text

[Richard S]

Couldn't wait for the CD so started into Ver 7 Designer Pro. (Win 7 Pro 64 bit)
I opened a PDF I had created in another graphics package (Canvas) and every letter of a word was like a single text entry.

I opened same file in my PDF writer and selected some text, copied to word and it copied as words not text entities.

Is that usual behaviour?
regards

[mwenz]

Hello Richard--can you post an example? I am assuming the individual letters are actually text and not shapes?

There are times when a PDF has varying degrees of text remaining as strings versus individual characters in different programs. But it also depends on what built the PDF (they are not all equal nor treated equally in a given application doing the import).

Take care, Mike

[Richard S]

I just created a fresh job in Canvas GIS and saved that as a PDF and also printed to Bluebeam. (my PDF) [canvas-xara_Bluebeam.pdf was 'printed to PDF']

Then opened in Xara 7 and they both behave differently.

Only text that seems to stay 'intact' are the 2 short sentences.
Other text is a mix of one or two joined entities.

I know PDF's can be problematic but am hoping to use Xara for more of my work.
I need to as in must be able to open and work with these sort of files as Xara won't open dwg's.

canvas-xara_Bluebeam.pdf
canvas-xara.pdf

regards

[mwenz]

Hello Richard,

Try importing the attached PDF into Xara...and if Canvas can, into it. I made a version of your file in XDP7. You'll find all the text is simply text.

I have also attached a screen shot of the innards of the PDF you supplied (canvas-xara_bluebeam.pdf). It shows that some of the text is vector. I suppose bluebeam couldn't decide what to do with the text lines containing symbols. But that is only a guess.

The canvas-xara.pdf is pure text (well, except the line). However, nothing I have opens it for editing without having each text character as a separate element instead of a text line. This is in contrast to the PDF from Xara. It opens and is editable in 3 applications I have on this laptop. No idea about Illustrator as it is at my office on a different computer.

Take care, Mike

[Richard S]

Thanks Mike
Both apps open the PDF and are editable.
But then if I print to or save as PDF from Canvas and open again in Xara or Bluebeam things don't stay consistent.

This (PDF) is the only way I can get XDP7 to work with my files and I defenitely don't want to have to recreate things in Xara.
My drawings are technical ones and so have a heavy CAD aspect to them,
Thats why I used Canvas so much as it would import dxf an dwg and GIS files also.

Xara has some nice features that Canvas doesn't and I have been wanting to use Xara for more of my work.

regards