How to Fix Gibberish When Copying Text from a PDF
Question details
Users experience unreadable characters or gibberish when attempting to paste text copied from a PDF document.
- Product
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Selecting and copying text from an opened PDF file to paste it into another application like Word or a text editor.
- Observed behavior
- The pasted text displays as random symbols and gibberish, often due to custom encodings, Type 3 fonts, or missing font maps in the PDF.
Confirm that the text is visually legible within the PDF viewer itself before attempting to copy, as severely corrupted files may display gibberish natively.
Use the Copy with Formatting Option
Using the specific 'Copy with Formatting' option can sometimes bypass localized encoding issues and retain the intended characters.
Open the PDF document, then click and drag your cursor over the specific paragraph or sentence you wish to copy.
Right-click on the highlighted text to open the context menu, and select 'Copy with Formatting'.
Open your target word processor or text editor, right-click, and select 'Paste' to verify if the text is now readable.
Extract Text Using OCR Software
When font encodings are entirely broken, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads the visual shapes of letters to generate completely new, readable text.
Recreate the PDF with Embedded Fonts
If you are the author or have access to the original source file, generating a new PDF with correct font settings eliminates the root cause.
Use WPS Office to OCR and Copy Text from Complex PDFs
WPS Office features a powerful built-in OCR tool and advanced PDF reading capabilities, making it easy to extract clean text from PDFs with broken font encodings without getting gibberish results.
- 1. Open your PDF: Launch WPS Office and open the PDF document containing the uncopyable text.
- 2. Navigate to Tools: Click on the 'Tools' tab in the top ribbon menu and select the 'OCR' feature.
- 3. Select the text area: Drag the selection box over the paragraph or page that pastes as gibberish.
- 4. Extract and copy: Allow the software to scan the area. Once finished, simply copy the accurately recognized text to your clipboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does copied PDF text turn into weird symbols?
This usually happens when the PDF creator software uses custom font encodings or Type 3 fonts that do not map correctly to standard unicode characters. The computer knows how to draw the font visually, but does not know what actual letter it represents.
Will installing missing fonts fix the gibberish text problem?
In some rare cases, installing the exact font used in the original document might fix mapping issues. However, if the PDF was saved with a custom encoding during the Distiller process, installing the font locally generally won't resolve it.
Can I fix the font encoding directly inside the existing PDF?
Fixing font encoding within a compiled PDF is highly complex and typically requires advanced pre-press software. The most practical solutions for regular users are using OCR to read the text visually, or recreating the PDF from the original source file with fonts embedded properly.
