[reportlab-users] Reportlab text not searchable in Apple OSX Preview.App? but searchable in Acrobat and google-pdf viewer ?

[Robin Becker]

hari jayaram wrote:
..........

> I noticed however that the text laden pdfs I am rendering are not searchable

> using Apple Mac (Leopard) OSX Preview.App

> 

> When I use the built in search within Preview.App only single characters

> light up ( only single characters show matches like a , b , c , d ) No words

> light up..

> 

> The very same pdfs are searchable in Adobe Acrobat on a PC and in Googles (

> GMAIL) built in  pdf viewer . The Google pdf viewer even highlights every

> occurace and gives great statistics.

> 

> But something about my pdfs make Preview not digest the run of characters as

> words.

> Since  a lot of the users are Mac users . How can I allow Preview.App to

> understand that "Peg 400" in my pdf is a word and not p , e , g etc etc..

.........
Since the document doesn't change presumably the problem lies in this 
Preview.App. First off can you check that other PDF's are searchable?

Also if possible can you supply a minimal reportlab script to make a pdf that 
fails the test and explain what it is you do to show the search failing?

I'm not a mac person, but we do have access to a couple of macs so we can do the 
testing. I seem to recall that OSX has a global document search facility (like 
windows search for a file containing a phrase); is that what we're talking about?
-- 
Robin Becker