What you're describing isn't unusual. I've received pdf documents, often
contracts, that obviously started life as text files but come to me as image
only. From talking to some of the senders and from talking to fellow
teachers who don't understand why their blind students can't read their
course materials, I've learned that text files become PDFs in one of two
ways:
the first is that files are scanned in from paper documents or from
electronic files. The second is that files are created in a wordprocessor,
then converted to PDF. Either way, the documents are sent to me as images
because the sender doesn't realize there are two PDF options, image only and
PDF with underlying text. in these cases the sender has to research and get
back to me, even if I offer to walk through the process with him or her. In
other cases, especially with contracts and other sensative material, the
documents are purposely sent as image only files so they can't be modified.
Occasionally, I'm requested to do the same. For example, at tax time this
year, my accountant wanted me to send him some extra information. I could
drop it by or email it to him as a PDF image.
To solve your problem and actually read the contract, you might try a
virtual scan, using your favorite OCR program. I know Open Book and Kurzweil
do this. I've just started using Text Cloner Pro, fine Reader, and OmniPage,
and I notice all have this capability though I haven't tried it in these
yet.
As a last resort, before you run a virtual scan, you might try saving the
PDF's as text files. Once in a blue moon, I get an empty document only to
discover that I can save it as text--obviously a glitch in Adobe's
processing of the file. This has happened maybe five times in the last four
or five years, but it doesn't hurt to try.
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