Chinese characters copying incorrectly when saving pdfs with Preview

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Level 1

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Chinese characters copying incorrectly when saving pdfs with Preview

So this is a very strange problem. When I save a .pdf that I have annotated in Preview, it saves fine and everything continues to display correctly. However, if I then try to copy Chinese characters from the pdf, it pastes gibberish. F'rex:

灿烂辉煌 becomes "3456"
and
遇到的问题 becomes " !"

Does anyone know what is going on and how to deal with it?

Posted on Jan 23, 2011 1:37 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Jan 23, 2011 2:23 PM in response to Dylan Brady

Copy/paste of non-Latin characters from pdf format is often unreliable because of non-standard encodings that may get used. You could try using Adobe Reader instead.

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Answer 2

Dylan Brady Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2011 11:53 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

The strange part is that initially the Chinese characters copy fine. It's only after I save the .pdf that copying goes all wonky. Is there any way to control what encoding Preview uses when saving?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Jan 30, 2011 12:32 PM in response to Dylan Brady

The strange part is that initially the Chinese characters copy fine. It's only after I save the .pdf that copying goes all wonky.

I think there is a bug related to annotation.

Is there any way to control what encoding Preview uses when saving?

No. PDF is the worst possible format to use for any kind of editing.

Have you tried Adobe Reader? Or Skim?

http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

Preview is not always the best option.

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