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Selectable text in PDF files

I’m an author with Barron’s and write for The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. I need to update my advice for job seekers whose resumes are entered into applicant tracking systems. The problem is that ATS systems can't parse PDF files with nonselectable text. If a PDF file is opened in Acrobat and you can select blocks of text, then the resume will be parsed in ATS systems. Otherwise, the systems can't read the PDF file. Right now, ATS programs are advising users not to send PDF files at all, which hurts your software sales. I would like to clear up this question. How do you "print" to PDF to ensure the text is selectable? Thanks, Pat Criscito


Pat Criscito


Voted Best Answer

Hi Pat,

Text is only selectable if there is text to select. If someone scans a paper copy of their resume to PDF this creates only a static picture of the paper. To make the text selectable on a scanned image, Acrobat has a feature called OCR (Optical Character Recognition). After running OCR most type written text, especially for something like a resume should then be selectable. OCR is not available in the free Adobe Reader- this requires Acrobat.

Now, if the resume was created in another software program to begin with, like Word for example, and then converted to PDF the text should automatically be selectable because it began as an electronic document, not a static picture.

Hope that helps and makes sense.

Dimitri

WindJack Solutions

www.pdfscripting.com

www.windjack.com


By Dimitri Munkirs   

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