PDF text does not display properly

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Level 2

164 points

PDF text does not display properly

My coworkers made a PDF (using Acrobat Pro and MS Office on Windows) that displays properly in Windows, Mac, Android, and iPad (iOS 6). However, on two different iPhones (v3 with iOS 3, v4 with iOS 5) the PDF displays with no text and only black gradient rectangles where the first line of each paragraph should be. The backgrounds & graphics look normal.

Inspection in HexEdit and Acrobat Pro show it's in PDF 1.5 format, all fonts are embedded subset.

Any suggestions?

Posted on Dec 3, 2012 12:47 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 7, 2012 2:40 AM in response to Frank Nospam

According to here, here, here (iPhones specification pages) and here (an article from NYTimes) iPhone can read .pdf files with any iOS version.

But in your case... Sorry, I don't know more than it... I have different kinds of PDFs on my devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) but I never saw something like it...

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Answer 2

Frank Nospam Author

Level 2

164 points

Dec 5, 2012 2:05 PM in response to S. H. Mahmoudi Mehrizi

Sorry I was unclear.

My question is not "how do I fiddle with the iPhone to display the PDF properly?"

My question is "how do I fiddle with the PDF to display properly on the iPhone?" or more precisely "What are known quirks in PDF rendering on iOS 5 and lower that might cause this problem, and how should I make PDFs to avoid them?"

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