pdf to word doc gibberish

[stevef51]

I am trying to convert a pdf version of an old book from Library of congress to Microsoft word doc, so that I can darken the copy which is light gray and unreadable. All I get is gibberish when I open the end resulting word file. Help Please!

[MeenakshiNegi]

Hi stevef51,

Could you please share the exact steps you do to export PDF to word file.

It will be helpful if you can share the screenshots of the PDF file and the Word file you get after conversion.

Also, share the dot version of Adobe application and OS you are working on.

Try once to export PDF online here: https://cloud.acrobat.com/exportpdf

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Meenakshi

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Did you OCR the document, or was it already OCR'ed?

If you are having problems reading this document, because of the lack of contrast, chances are that the OCR function in Acrobat will have similar problems to recognize characters, which would explain why you are ending up with "gibberish". One thing you can try is to edit the page image in e.g. Adobe Photoshop and enhance the contrast and potentially sharpen the image, and then try to OCR again.

Is the document you are referring to publicly available? If so, please post the link to it.