Text search stopped working in Adobe Reader X

Question

We create a weekly report that is posted in a shared network directory for multiple user access.   These pdf files can be accessed by Adobe reader or full Adobe as needed.  The reports are created in the same manner each week by printing an electronic file to the Adobe PDF printer.  The reports generated after the 10th of January are no longer searchable.  Any report before that date can be opened and when a search is performed the occurrances are highlighted as needed and can be jumped to by clicking on the search list created.  Any report created after  January 10, yields no results.  This despite the visible presence of the search word or words in the visible document.  The search mechanism is looking at the file and all of its pages but producing no results.  I have looked at the document properties and can find no difference in their properties or behavior.  Anyone have any ideas as to what might contribute to this change?  As these are public record reports, I can send copies for analysis if needed. Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Ok,
First -In context of your post above this one it might be a good thing to slick those files sooner rather than later.
While present in the account they are available to the "world" through the links.
The two pre-Jan 10 PDFs have content mastered in a word processing application.
I'd say it was MS Word as the PDFs were produced via printing with Adobe Distiller 9 (installed by Acrobat 9 Standard or Pro).
A File > Print > Adobe Printer selected.
The Distiller job option used had PDF version 1.5 (associated with release of Acrobat 6) selected; so, that's the version of the two PDFs.
These PDFs both have renderable text rather than hidden text associated with OCR output.
Both PDFs, as outputs of Adobe's 'Acrobat' product are ISO 32000-1 (ISO's PDF standard) compliant.
Consequently, Acrobat's Catalog index / Search feature encounters a "well-formed" (Standards compliant) PDF.
The post-Jan10 PDFs were also sourced from a word processing application (again, I'd say MS Word).
However, the free PrimoPDF application developed the PDF output.
The PDFs contain renderable and hidden text. It is as if the initial output PDF was and image and that was sent through an OCR process that replaced recognized characters with a renderable character and left unrecognized characters as hidden text.
Consequence: What Catalog index / Search / Find can 'grab' is not the same as what you 'see'.
In sum, post Jan 10 the way the PDFs were produced changed. That is the crux of it.
Be well...