All words in PDF are different. Example: “most” is “ PRVW”

DEVONthink
1

Here is how I usually get this proble:

  1. I downloaded this this book
  2. Indexed it
  3. it works and everything is fine
  4. a few hours/days later it stops recognizing the words and instead recognizes words as different characters.
    For example when I select the word “most” and copy/paste it, it pastes as “PRVW” and not “most”
    I had this issue with only 2 medical pdfs I’ve downloaded online. Other medical pdfs work completely fine.

I have this issue with this specific book 3 times now.
Any help is appreciated

2

Welcome to the DRM world. I have same issues and normally the only way to resolve it is re-OCR them (with DT or with another program).

It happens with PDFs with DRM when:

  • Annotate something
  • Add/Remove pages
  • Edit (change things).
  • Split/Merge

Not always happens due bugs in macOS PDF framework, and it depends on what kind of DRM/Password protection file has and Moon phase.

1 Like
3

Some similar issues discussed in this thread: PDF highlighting and file size

Unfortunately that discussion led only to workarounds, not solutions.

1 Like
4

I did not know about this at all. Thank you very much

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5

THank yoiu :slight_smile: