My sight is not what it was, and Arabic text is notoriously hard to read save in a fairly large font. I have downloaded various of the above, and can easily read the text in Skim or Preview using the zoom-feature. However, it would be easier for me to work from paper copies, if I could somehow increase the size of the type-face. I have assumed that the way of doing this is to convert the format to RTF, but I have tried the online-converters, and all have failed: either the text is jumbled, or it is displayed written from left-to-right or there is no text shown at all. Any help would be much appreciated.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Arabic-language files in PDF-format
- Thread starter paieye
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I understand your frustration, my eyes are not as effective as they used to be. I use both Acrobat and PDFPen Pro for editing and extracting text, but do not recommend either for what you are describing. Although it's not free, the application I use - and recommend - is made by a long-time Mac developer, Solid Framework. They created a specific app named Solid Converter (http://www.mac-pdf-converter.com), just for extracting text from PDF files and saving them to specific document formats including MS Word and text files, and it works in 10.9/10/11. Solid offers a free trial, to try for yourself. An encumbrance for you exists in that Solid does not sell an Arabic-based application among the several languages they do support, however, if you can use the application in English or one of the other languages they do support you may be able to navigate the application and its commands.
My only recommendation is to offer that you have the same font(s) installed that are included with the PDF file(s) you seek to extract text from. I use Acrobat to change fonts as necessary - so many of the PDF files sent to me and my company use non-standard fonts or font sets (which can really slow down a conversion or even viewing of a PDF document).
But, there MAY be a free option for you to try out on your Mac first that may suit your needs. I've included a screenshot of one very minor change to the Print Dialog Box - in the "Scale" option, the default setting for Scale is 100% and I change it to a suitably-larger scale (I used 200% for the screenshot). In the Dialog Box, I'll also change the document's Orientation to Landscape (from Portrait) OR the document's Paper Size from the typical Letter/A4 size to Tabloid (11"x17") as I also have a large format printer available. The change to a larger paper size or by using landscape will accommodate the "zoomed" document sent to the printer. Then (as an option), what I do to save my enlarged use the PDF Pulldown Menu to Open my new "enlarged" document in Preview so I can look at it before sending it to a printer (however, one does not need to do this first - I like to proof my documents before printing them...).
My only recommendation is to offer that you have the same font(s) installed that are included with the PDF file(s) you seek to extract text from. I use Acrobat to change fonts as necessary - so many of the PDF files sent to me and my company use non-standard fonts or font sets (which can really slow down a conversion or even viewing of a PDF document).
But, there MAY be a free option for you to try out on your Mac first that may suit your needs. I've included a screenshot of one very minor change to the Print Dialog Box - in the "Scale" option, the default setting for Scale is 100% and I change it to a suitably-larger scale (I used 200% for the screenshot). In the Dialog Box, I'll also change the document's Orientation to Landscape (from Portrait) OR the document's Paper Size from the typical Letter/A4 size to Tabloid (11"x17") as I also have a large format printer available. The change to a larger paper size or by using landscape will accommodate the "zoomed" document sent to the printer. Then (as an option), what I do to save my enlarged use the PDF Pulldown Menu to Open my new "enlarged" document in Preview so I can look at it before sending it to a printer (however, one does not need to do this first - I like to proof my documents before printing them...).