SDL Trados Studio 2017 - Exported PDF files are always corrupt
Thread poster: Selçuk Dilşen
Selçuk Dilşen
Selçuk Dilşen  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:07
Member (2014)
English to Turkish
+ ...
Apr 8, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

I have upgraded to SDL Trados Studio 2017 from 2015 a couple of months ago and applied all updates released so far. Current build number is 14.0.5281.4.
I didn't have any problems with PDF files in 2015. With 2017, whenever I export the PDF file and then try to open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader, I get the error messages "Adobe Acrobat Reader DC could not open xxx.pdf because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been da
... See more
Dear Colleagues,

I have upgraded to SDL Trados Studio 2017 from 2015 a couple of months ago and applied all updates released so far. Current build number is 14.0.5281.4.
I didn't have any problems with PDF files in 2015. With 2017, whenever I export the PDF file and then try to open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader, I get the error messages "Adobe Acrobat Reader DC could not open xxx.pdf because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged." and "Format Error: Not a PDF file or corrupted". Let me add that, those PDF files are not scanned PDFs but so called "editable PDF"s. I don't remember if this issue appeared after an update or not. I have this issue with all pdf files, not just some of them. Therefore, it has become impossible to work with PDFs.

Does anyone have the same issue as mine? Any solutions, any suggestions, any workarounds?

Have a great weekend!
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Roy Oestensen
Roy Oestensen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 01:07
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
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Is the exported file a pdf or a Word file? Apr 8, 2017

My experience is that CAT tools may be able to import pdf files, but I have always thought the exported document then would be a Word document, not a pdf document.

Try to open the exported file in Word and convert it to pdf after that if your customer actually wants and needs a pdf file. My recommendation would be a Word file instead, since my experience is that the resulting translated pdf file is awful format wise - too cramped text in text boxes for one thing. (My experience is w
... See more
My experience is that CAT tools may be able to import pdf files, but I have always thought the exported document then would be a Word document, not a pdf document.

Try to open the exported file in Word and convert it to pdf after that if your customer actually wants and needs a pdf file. My recommendation would be a Word file instead, since my experience is that the resulting translated pdf file is awful format wise - too cramped text in text boxes for one thing. (My experience is with the excellent utility InFix, by the way, which gives a pdf as an end product, but I've found that the result is less than satisfactory, so I would not recomment that work flow.)

Roy
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NeoAtlas
NeoAtlas
Spain
Local time: 01:07
English to Spanish
+ ...
Same problem here Apr 8, 2017

I've been able to repro your problem when I export (something I have never done before). I use SDL Trados Studio 2014.

To avoid this problem, just use the Finalize option, instead of Export. Then go to your target language folder, and grab the translated DOCX file.

… Jesús Prieto …


 
Roy Oestensen
Roy Oestensen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 01:07
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
+ ...
I'd advice using a good OCR program before importing the pdf file Apr 8, 2017

NeoAtlas wrote:
I've been able to repro your problem when I export (something I have never done before). I use SDL Trados Studio 2014.
To avoid this problem, just use the Finalize option, instead of Export. Then go to your target language folder, and grab the translated DOCX file.
… Jesús Prieto …


If you use an automatic pdf converter, it will always be inferior to a dedicated OCR program like Abby Finereader or Omnipage Pro. These give you full control over what you import.

In addition you can clean up the source document so it looks the way you want it (get rid of unwanted line breaks, having the copy in the correct order etc.).

Then import it. I think you will save yourself a lot of aggravatoion that way.

Personally I never trust the result that either Studio, Dejavu or any other CAT tool would give. In addition any graphics will also be OCR-ed so you have everything as editable text rather than parts being skipped.

Roy


 
Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 01:07
Member (2002)
English to Russian
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Moderator of this forum
SITE LOCALIZER
No export to PDF is possible Apr 8, 2017

The target file will be always DOCX. Open the resulting DOCX in Word and save as PDF.

You may want to take a look at http://tinyurl.com/m8zfp7g


 
Roy Oestensen
Roy Oestensen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 01:07
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
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So what did you do in 2015, Selçuk? Apr 8, 2017

Natalie wrote:
The target file will be always DOCX. Open the resulting DOCX in Word and save as PDF.
You may want to take a look at http://tinyurl.com/m8zfp7g


As I also thought. Which makes me wonder how Selçuk Dilşen treated the pdf-s in 2015 since he is sure he opened the exported document in Adobe Reader.


 
Lianne van de Ven
Lianne van de Ven  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 20:07
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
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Second this Apr 9, 2017

Roy Oestensen wrote:

NeoAtlas wrote:
I've been able to repro your problem when I export (something I have never done before). I use SDL Trados Studio 2014.
To avoid this problem, just use the Finalize option, instead of Export. Then go to your target language folder, and grab the translated DOCX file.
… Jesús Prieto …


If you use an automatic pdf converter, it will always be inferior to a dedicated OCR program like Abby Finereader or Omnipage Pro. These give you full control over what you import.

In addition you can clean up the source document so it looks the way you want it (get rid of unwanted line breaks, having the copy in the correct order etc.).

Then import it. I think you will save yourself a lot of aggravatoion that way.

Personally I never trust the result that either Studio, Dejavu or any other CAT tool would give. In addition any graphics will also be OCR-ed so you have everything as editable text rather than parts being skipped.

Roy


I recently used "PDF to Word" by WPS (https://www.wps.com/pdf-to-word, WPS Office) because it had good reviews, and I had very good results converting a 22 page PDF to Word. I then optimized the word document before importing it into Studio 2017, with CodeZapper (CLZ, PDFFix and PDFTidy - 3 different treatments for pdf to word documents) and double-checked manually for page breaks etc. I was very happy with the straightforward and clean result, and so was the client.

As for the purchase of PDF to Word ($29.95), I apparently accidentally purchased the entire WPS Office (same price) from within the PDF to Word trial version (that allows max. 5 pages or so) and although that Office program seemed fine, I didn't need it at all and I was aggravated that it hacked all my default Office programs. They issued a refund and I had a bit of an issue removing the program clean (various components), and then oddly, the stand-alone PDF to Word still works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPS_Office

[Edited at 2017-04-09 18:36 GMT]


 
Selçuk Dilşen
Selçuk Dilşen  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:07
Member (2014)
English to Turkish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks! Oct 1, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for your time recommending solutions to my question. I have benefited from all replies.

You are all awesome people!


 
Selçuk Dilşen
Selçuk Dilşen  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:07
Member (2014)
English to Turkish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
A hint of what I discovered accidentally; you don't really need to finalize! Dec 30, 2018

I has been a long time since I started this topic but I wish to give a hint for the colleagues who still suffer the same problem. I discovered this very recently when playing with a PDF in Trados Studio.

Here's the story:
SDL Trados Studio 2017 exports the translated PDF with .pdf file extension if you try to export it before finalizing, but the exported PDF won't open in any PDF-handling software. As you are probably aware, when you finalize it you get a MS Word (docx) file.
... See more
I has been a long time since I started this topic but I wish to give a hint for the colleagues who still suffer the same problem. I discovered this very recently when playing with a PDF in Trados Studio.

Here's the story:
SDL Trados Studio 2017 exports the translated PDF with .pdf file extension if you try to export it before finalizing, but the exported PDF won't open in any PDF-handling software. As you are probably aware, when you finalize it you get a MS Word (docx) file. In fact, Trados Studio exports a .docx file also before finalizing but fails to name it properly, i.e. with .docx extension! Therefore, what you need to do is just renaming the exported file by changing its extension from .pdf to docx. Then you will see that the file opens smoothly in Microsoft Word (or any other software compatible with docx format). No finalization needed!

Happy new year to all!

[Edited at 2018-12-30 22:54 GMT]
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Maurits Meulenbelt
Konstantinos Rados
 
Konstantinos Rados
Konstantinos Rados
Greece
Local time: 02:07
English to Greek
+ ...
Thanks for solution. Jun 25, 2021

Thank you so much for taking the time to post your solution here. I had the same problem for a while and indeed it was so easy to fix!

 


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SDL Trados Studio 2017 - Exported PDF files are always corrupt







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