Can't search for words anymore after saving PDFs in Preview

Hi everyone,
I would love to use Preview for my day-to-day use of previewing PDFs + highlighting + setting annotations. However, once I have saved the pdf with Preview I can not search for words anymore. If I search for one letter only, I would get cryptic hits like "7;%! 2%8%P%8!".
I am not sure, but I guess when preview saves the pdf using a Quartz PDF context, something happens with the index, or the underlying the font structuring.
Does anyone have had experience with these kinds of troubles?
Thanks in advance,
Heinrich

Hi, thanks for answering quickly, and the heads up on that other thread.
It undoubtedly has to do with the annotations or mark ups (the last, in my case).
In the linked-to thread they end by suggesting that it's because it's has "commenting not allowed" when you see it
using Adobe Reader, File > Properties > Security says Commenting: Not Allowed.
However, some documents with "commenting not allowed set in Adobe Reader I can highlight or annotate fine, without it messing up after saving.
Besides, any document I save as pdf even from Word, will say commenting not allowed in Adobe Reader. So if even my own documents are not highlight- or annotate-able without garbling the text, what documents would these functions be for, then?
I think what somebody mentioned in the other thread about character encodings hold some truth, I see it in documents in Danish with æ ø and å (however, not all!), but not in English-only docs (yet. Have any of you?).
Thanks in advance,
- Alexander

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