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How to Fix Malayalam Text Displaying as Gibberish in Word and PDF
Question details
The user needs to correct the display of Malayalam text that turns into unrecognized characters or gibberish when extracting it from a PDF.
- Product
- Word and PDF
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Opening a PDF directly in Word or copying Malayalam text from a PDF document and pasting it into a Word document.
- Observed behavior
- The Malayalam characters do not render correctly, displaying as gibberish, empty boxes, or random symbols due to text-extraction, font, or encoding failures.
Verify whether the source PDF contains selectable text rather than scanned images, and ensure you have standard Malayalam Unicode fonts installed on your operating system.
Convert the PDF using a Unicode-Compatible Tool
Using a dedicated PDF to Word converter that fully supports Unicode preserves the original text encoding and prevents complex scripts from breaking.
Many standard PDF viewers fail to accurately map non-Latin scripts during a simple copy-paste operation. If the original PDF was properly exported using Unicode, a reputable PDF converter will seamlessly translate the text back into an editable Word document.
Launch a professional PDF management tool, such as WPS Office, and navigate to the 'PDF to Word' conversion feature.
Select or drag and drop the PDF document containing the Malayalam text into the converter interface.
Initiate the conversion process. Once finished, open the newly created Word document and verify that the Malayalam text displays correctly.
Install the Missing Malayalam Font
If the text was successfully extracted but your system lacks the font used in the original document, it will render as gibberish. Installing the required font fixes this.
Accurately Convert and Edit PDFs with WPS Office
WPS Office provides advanced PDF to Word conversion tools that maintain complex text encoding and original formatting. Its comprehensive language support ensures that regional scripts like Malayalam are rendered accurately when converting documents.
- 1. Launch WPS Office: Open the WPS Office desktop application and select 'PDF' from the left sidebar.
- 2. Use the PDF to Word Tool: Click on 'PDF to Word' located in the toolkit menu.
- 3. Upload and Convert: Add your Malayalam PDF file and click the 'Start' button to begin the conversion process.
- 4. Edit Your Text: The converted file will automatically open in WPS Writer, ready for you to edit the correctly rendered Malayalam text.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does copied Malayalam text from a PDF paste as random symbols?
This happens when the PDF relies on custom embedded fonts or legacy encoding rather than standard Unicode. Because the word processor cannot map the copied data to proper Unicode characters, it outputs unrecognized symbols.
How can I tell if a PDF has standard selectable Unicode text?
Try highlighting a sentence in the PDF and pasting it into a basic plain text editor like Notepad. If it displays as legible Malayalam text, the PDF uses Unicode. If it pastes as square boxes or gibberish, it uses custom legacy encoding.
Can I extract text from a scanned Malayalam PDF?
A scanned PDF is treated as a flat image, so standard copy-pasting will not work. To extract the text, you must use an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software that specifically supports the Malayalam language.
