[Pdfedit-support] Editing text: text is scrambled

[Robert B. <ro...@ro...>]

When I attempt to edit any text on some pdfs, the editable text shown
in the dynamic toolbar is scrambled. for instance, the text "Tax
Invoice #000335" is shown as "8E\ -RZSMGI        " (in case the
non-printing characters get lost they are (in unicode)
0004,0004,0007,0014(three times)0017(twice),0019.)
This is a pdf created by the gnome print tool. A pdf file that shows
this behavior is attached. PDFs created by cups out of notepad show
this behaviour, but when created out of OpenOffice do not.

I have noticed that the text is in a custom font, with a name such as
"NAAAAA+DejaVuSansMono". If I insert new text using this font, the
text I enter is scrambled in the pdf, and many typed characters show
as unfilled boxes. (In PDFs out of OpenOffice, any characters not in
the original document show up as unfilled boxes. Characters in that
font in the original document display correctly)

It seems to me that the pdf file only includes glyphs as they are used
in the file, and numbers them as it requires them. Or it may be some
abortive DRM move (although it is strange that gnome-print does it, if
that is the case!)

Is there any way to either unscramble the text in the pdf file, so
text can be entered normally, or to get pdfedit to show the
descrambled text in the edit boxes, and rescramble the text when I am
done editing it?

(I am sorry if this has been covered already: I browsed through the
support mailing list and could not find anything, and the sourceforge
list search appears to be broken.)