www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum

I am writing letters from VRPC using Ovation Pro. These are made into PDF using the PDF printer driver (Taborca) as per the standard install but the PDFs content can't be selected using the Text tool in Mac's preview.

On the Mac I can print the file and get a typographically-perfect paper or on-screen document. I then want to store the results but have noticed the file is not 'searchable'. I can't select text in Preview or Adobe, or successfully spotlight search. I found if I based my text style on Homerton rather than the more exotic Goudy font, I could then search, making my stored products (on Mac side) searchable. Similarly if as an experiment I applied Homerton font to a chunk of text, only that was searchable (Text selection in the PDF), the remainder appearing on-screen and on-paper but not being searchable.

Is there any way round this to allow fully selectable text other than using very basic fonts please?

thanks.

As no-one has offered a definitive reply, this is no more than an idea based on the symptoms (and no warranty is given...)

If you do not have a Goudy-like font installed on the Mac side, it may be that your PDF reader is then generating either bitmap or (more likely) vector 'shapes' of the text, on-the-fly. The bitmaps/shapes are very satisfactory for display and for printing. But, not being real font characters, cannot be selected with the Text tool and thus are not searchable.

But when you use Homerton for part or all of the text, a Homerton-like font installed in the Mac (probably Helvetica) will very likely be invoked for display and printing. And, being 'proper' font characters, they can be selected and are searchable.

So I think the answer is to consider installing a Goudy-style font in your Mac, when all may come good (that is if the theory proves correct...)

Fingers crossed, HTH

Alex Hamilton
pp T.O.M.S.

I think the same symptoms are seen when using Adobe Acrobat to generate PDF files on a Windows PC.

Message for Chris H:

Did you ever solve your 'searchable' fonts problem?

We've had a query in from a Mac + VirtualRPC user which sounds very much like the same sort of thing you were referring to. So if the idea of installing a Goudy-style font on the Mac did the trick, maybe it will also work for him. We don't have Macs so can't test it ourselves. TIA.

Mike Nicholl
pp T.O.M.S.