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PDF has garbled text when copy pasting

Asked 12 years, 8 months ago Modified 1 year, 8 months ago Viewed 184k times

I'm trying to copy and paste text from a PDF file.

36 However, whenever I paste the original text it is a huge mess of garbled characters. The text
looks like the following (this is just one small extract):

4$/)5=$13! ,4&1*%-! )5'$! 1$2$)&,$40! 65))! .*5)1! -#$! )/'8*/8$03!

(4/+$6&4;0!/'1!-&&)0!*0$1!.9!/,,)5%/-5&'!1$2$)&,$403!5'!+*%#!-#$!
0/+$!6/9! -#/-! &,$4/-5'8! 090-$+! 1$2$)&,$40! .*5)1!1$25%$! 1452$40!
/'1! &-#$4! 090-$+! 0&(-6/4$! %&+,&'$'-0! *0$1! .9! /,,)5%/-5&'!
1$2$)&,$40!-&1/97!"#$!+5M!&(!,4&1*%-!)5'$!/'1!,4&1*%-!1$2$)&,$40!
65))! .$!+*%#!+&4$! $2$')9! ./)/'%$13! #&6$2$43! -#/'! -#$!+5M! &(!
&,$4/-5'8!090-$+!/'1!/,,)5%/-5&'!1$2$)&,$40!-&1/97!
)*+*+, C<88,?>8513AG<5A14,

I've tried it in both Adobe and Foxit PDF readers. I did a 'Save as text' in Adobe Reader and the
resultant text file is the same garbled text.

Any ideas how I can get this text out non-garbled? (Other than manual typing... there's a lot of
text to extract.)

pdf adobe-reader foxit-reader

Share Improve this question edited Mar 19, 2013 at 14:47 asked May 5, 2010 at 13:53
Follow Sathyajith Bhat ♦ ngm
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