copy/paste from PDF consistently changes or omits text

Question

When copy/pasting text from a PDF into a blank Confluence page, certain letter combinations and characters are either omitted or changed. This is annoying especially since the omissions/changes seemingly make no sense and are not listed anywhere in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" setting tab.

For example, Confluence is omitting "fi" "ff" "if" in all pasted text from PDF. Additionally, Confluence changes " to / and - to {

The only change that sort of makes sense (but is still annoying and not able to be turned off) is changing all underscores (_) to spaces.

Can anyone either provide insight as to why this is happening or what I can do to stop it? I am new to Confluence and really struggling to get around this annoyance!

Thanks.

Steffen Heller · Accepted Answer

I guess that you have a PDF that contains fonts or letters that are different from the standard used in confluence. A good example is the "fi" "ff" "if". These are probably ligatures (two letters in one) that can't be translated into confluence correctly.

If you ask for a solution: I don't know. Probably you have to learn which letters are changed incorrectly and then go through the text and correct it manually.