TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
The missing "fi", and quite possibly other characters of this sort such
as "fl" and many others, are because the client has used an application
that can apply "ligatures". A ligature is a single typeset character
that is an optimized combination of two characters which when set
separately often produce overlapping or touching areas, such as the end
round part of the "f" and the dot on the "i". The "fi" ligature almost
always has the dot removed.
Applications sometimes have the ability to turn on/off the use of
ligatures; their use depends, also, on whether the font in question has
the ligature set available. A similar situation results in the missing
apostrophes and quotation marks, as the software has substituted other
codes for these keys to make them the proper typeset "curly" characters
rather than plain straight quotes/apostrophes. Do a Google search on
"ligatures typeset" and you'll find lots of info.
There are other PDF text extraction tools available; check
http://www.pdfzone.com to see an extensive list. I don't know whether
any of them can compensate for ligatures and other typesetting
characters, though. Be sure to check your copy for other typesetting
characters such as em dashes and en dashes to see if they are also being
lost on the text export.
Sheila
Martin Finke wrote:
I use Gemini to extract text from PDF from a regular client who uses the TBodoni font.
Every time I extract from one of their files to RTF format the two
consecutive characters "fi" are deleted. Apostrophes and quotation marks are deleted also.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are you using Doc-to-Help or ForeHelp? Switch to RoboHelp for Word for $249
or to RoboHelp Office for only $499. Get the PC Magazine five-star rated
Help authoring tool for less! Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by April 30. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
