How to make overset text in PDF placed in InDesign non-searchable

January 23, 2018 8:25 AM

I've placed a number of PDFs in an InDesign document but with tightly constrained text boxes, meaning that much of the text in the PDF is essentially overset. I then export that InDesign as its own PDF. My problem is that text that is overset on the placed PDF pages is still searchable. Is there a setting somewhere in Acrobat or InDesign that would solve this problem?!?<

For example, let's say that the word MONEY is on a PDF page that I place in an InDesign document but I make the InDesign text box smaller so that the word MONEY is overset in the box. I export the InDesign doc as a new PDF, open the new PDF and search for the word MONEY. The search results point me to an area of my document where it sees the word MONEY in the overset text box despite the word not being visible. This would be very confusing to any end user and I need to make it go away.

I'd like for the resultant PDF to not look at overset text. Is the solution in Acrobat, is it in InDesign, or is there no solution other than replacing the PDFs with rasters?

posted by Jamesonian to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I don't know InDesign, but you could render the text to vector outlines (whatever's equivalent to "Create Outlines" in Illustrator). This would inflate your PDF size a bit depending on how much text we're talking here.
posted by neckro23 at 8:45 AM on January 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I think the problem isn't that the text is 'overset'; it's just cropped out, but still present. If I'm reading this correctly, you're cropping the pdf file, and using just part of the the page of the original pdf, placed in InDesign. When you make a new pdf from InDesign, the original pdf information is searchable, regardless of the fact that you cropped it out.

I think your best bet would be to edit your pdfs before you place them into InDesign. Crop the pdf in Acrobat (or photoshop or illustrator) so it only has the info you need, then place that resulting file into InDesign.
posted by hydra77 at 9:15 AM on January 23, 2018

Try this: Take the InDesign document with cropped placed PDFs and export high res JPGs from the file. Then place those exported JPGs into a new InDesign file and make PDFs from this new file. This will make the copy into an image file and it will no longer be searchable text in the new PDF. So basically, yes, to make the text not searchable it has to be raster.
posted by blacktshirtandjeans at 10:24 AM on January 23, 2018

Best answer: I would not use vectors or jpgs. They will make your PDF broken and inaccessible. You need to solve the problem upstream.

Here's a tip for using the story editor to globally delete overset text. You would need to do this in InDesign and then re-export the PDF.
http://www.indesignskills.com/skills/remove-overset-text/

There are also scripts and plugin that might help, like Overset Manager.

I have not personally tried these. If they don't do what you want, just search for "InDesign script delete overset text". There's a nice community of ID scripters out there, and most of them like to share.
posted by libraryhead at 11:43 AM on January 23, 2018

Forgot to add that you can make then make the text in the final PDF created from JPGs into searchable text again in Acrobat Pro by running the recognize text function in the final PDF. You can't do this in Adobe Acrobat Reader, you have to have the Pro version, which I am assuming you have since you are working with InDesign.
posted by blacktshirtandjeans at 12:37 PM on January 23, 2018