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PDF has missing fonts and scrambled words


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I am using AFPub 1.7.3.  I want to edit items on pages from pdf documents in my genealogy files..

I have been printing the desired page as a  pdf document to the desktop and then dragging it onto the AfPub icon at the bottom of my iMac screen. I click ... Open. I have also tried Open from under File at the top of the window.

The apostrophes become the letter "g"  like this ...  When I look back at my fathergs life, especially before the last couple years, it was a very good life.
and quotation marks become  ... The movie _The Graduate` got it right in just one word and _Plastics` was magic in the 1960s.

There are multiple text boxes, some overlapping, which make editing more difficult. Sometimes when trying to type new words, the letters spread wide and don't maintain correct spacing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Then using a new (page 1.pdf) page I opened it with the Times font.  It was not good with symbols replacing some letters. I tried again in the (Missing font) message and to (Replace Lucinda Grande) which I THINK was the original replacement text. It resulted in the same scrambled replacement even though I again used a new pdf page.  When opening with no "Replace missing fonts,  I get the (Missing Font 2) message. It is still random symbols mixed with letters. (Copy and paste) from the original pdf into a text box in AfPub is still bad.

The font is corrupted in some way.  I thought a pdf document is a pdf document and there should not be a problem.  My "little problem" is now a "bigger problem!"

I have almost 500 pages in one genealogy line and 270 in another genealogy lineage. I will have more to edit as future events arise. I hope to not have to retype very many.

I hope someone will be able to help.

Missing font.jpg

Replace Lucinda Grande.jpg

Copy and paste.jpg

page 1.pdf

Missing Font 2.jpg

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10 hours ago, BugsJane said:

I thought a pdf document is a pdf document and there should not be a problem.

A pdf document is a pdf document as long you not try to edit / break it. What programme are you using to produce your PDF? Can you try to change the font inside this programme and try again? Can you try to print to another PDF printer? It appears to me, that the used font in the pdf seems to be some kind of Times.

Some PDF libraries are producing - hmm being polite - suboptimal PDFs. Try to open something made with pdfsharp and have a funny time. :(

The only solution to repair your PDF was for me to open it in Illustrator, replace this funky font and save it again as PDF. But sadly this is no solution for you.

 

------
Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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@BugsJane 
you wrote: "I have been printing the desired page as a  pdf document to the desktop and then .."
= you have the Source-Files? Which type? (Word?) Are they displayed correctly?

...or did you just print a PDF to a PDF as an easy way to extract a single page from a multi-page PDF?

The PDF you attached was created with the MacOS-PDF Engine...

image.png.ed6f2c69ba4b0ccd4305cc1f6b1cc47a.png

...and claims to contain 2 Fonts...

image.png.905a5ce3b2d66a21e8b87b90258c5f93.png

...with the same name ?!

2 Fonts looks OK to me since the these elements seem to be bullet-points or Symbols but the embedding went wrong.

image.png.91d7911f60af772782d421beceeea492.png

Since you wrote "I have been printing the desired page as a  pdf document.."
Do you have any alternative methods for PDF-creation? other than the built-in MacOS - PDF-Generator?

(If the source is MS Word: just use "Save as.."  or use the Word-Import of Publisher...)

kind regards
Fritz

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1 minute ago, Lagarto said:

Affinity apps typcally cannot interpret an embedded font correctly. If the pdf file you have provided is opened e.g. in Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, the characters are rendered correctly, so in this case there does not seem to be anything wrong with the pdf file itself. You should open and edit the original Publisher files instead of PDF files.

XP&GD will utilize the embeded font, yes. But try changing the font. One can type using the embedded font(s) in XP&GD as long as the new characters exist in the file already.

But, the PDF producer does a crappy job. Many glyphs have no encoding:

Capture_000441.png.69b0d1b61d825be6422780f89b4554df.png

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I thank all of you for your attention to my problem.  The need to edit a pdf page from a pdf document is because my old Mac died and I purchased a new Mac now running with Catalina 10.15.3.  This event left me with only the pdf files from the desktop publishing program, Diwan's Ready,Set,Go!, which was originally designed for Mac by Manhattan Graphics and used by me since the 1980s.  It is now only available for PCs.  

Since I can not edit the original files, I have only the pdf files. I have printed a single page from a pdf document to the desktop saved as a pdf page. In many cases it then transfers fine into AfPub having recognized the font. In other cases it is a mess.  I have in some cases been able to copy and paste from the old page to a new page in AfPub.

I have used Times font originally in producing these pages.

I am ill informed about some of the things you all are suggesting and so do not understand it all.  I have had this problem previously with help by a person who converted the text, but could not save the formatting. I may just have to spend more time retyping when this crops up again.  Thankfully, it hasn't happened often.

Thank you again!  I appreciate your experience. I am a retired elementary teacher who used desktop publishing to produce activity pages, etc. for students. I do love AfPub as I needed a replacement for my current work with genealogy and creating tutorials for art quilting techniques.  This forum is great to find people like you so willing to help! 

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You can download an old trial version of Ready, Set, Go for Mac from CNet.

https://download.cnet.com/Ready-Set-Go/3000-6675_4-3774.html
If that can open the file you may be able to cut-and-paste the text into another Mac text app.

The problem is the encoding and moving to Unicode.
In your original files the fonts used are probably the old Mac-Roman encoding.
When these are being written into the PDF not all of the characters are being properly mapped to Unicode.
For example the left double quote actually has the code for the number 2 behind it.
So when you paste it or import it you get a 2.

You may be able to open the files and paste into another Mac text app and it will understand the old encoding and convert it properly.
Once it is in the PDF it is a mess.
But some Mac-to-Mac app pasting may work.

The bullets are probably a different issue.
Both Mac and PC use these very old non-Unicode symbols fonts for various OS interface stuff.
Some older applications use these fonts for symbols such as bullets.
On the Mac I think the font is the Zapf Dingbats.
On the PC it is the Symbols font.
Both are really old pre-Unicode TTF fonts.
If I disable the Symbol font on Windows the bullets do not work in the Help & Manual application.
The output will have odd characters like your PDFs.
So I do not think you can do anything about this, the junk is already in the PDF.

Using the trial version of Ready, Set, Go you may have time to cut-n-paste the bulk of your text.
Somehow you need to get that text from the old encoding to Unicode.
It is going to require manual editing.
I tested exporting the PDF to a Word file and it is a complete mess.
Using OCR to convert it actually worked better because more of the characters were converted properly.

 

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1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

Xara (also only for PC), mentioned above, allows editing of text similarly, but converts text to curves when exported back to PDF.

It doesn't need to. Check the options. The convert type to curves is a sticky option. 

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