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From: Helge Blischke <h.blischke@acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: text messes up in ps2pdf converted pdf
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Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:18:57 +0200
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Peng Yu wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I convert the ps file to a pdf file. But the text in the pdf is messed
> up. I'm wondering how to convert a ps file to a pdf file so that the
> text can be copied? Thanks and look forward to hearing from you!
> 
> $ps2pdf pcfg-notes.ps
> 
> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~roni/11761-s01/PreviousYearsHandouts/pcfg-notes.ps
> 
> --
> Regards,
> Peng

The PS file has been generated by dvips, the default TeX PostScript 
generation method. This method, by default, positions each character 
indifidually, therefore there is no trivial method to extract text from it; 
it requires more intelligent algorithms (e.g. to compare the distance 
between rendered characters with the normal interword spacing to determine 
word boundaries etc.

Helge