Export to PDF creates a PDF with reversed text

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Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a text note.
  2. Export to PDF
  3. Open the PDF
  4. Highlight and copy text

Expected result

the copied text should not be reversed

Actual result

the copied text is in reverse order

Environment

  • Operating system: MacOS Monterey 12.6.2
  • Debug info:
    SYSTEM INFO:
    Obsidian version: v1.1.9
    Installer version: v0.14.6
    Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 21.6.0: Sun Nov 6 23:31:16 PST 2022; root:xnu-8020.240.14~1/RELEASE_X86_64 21.6.0
    Login status: logged in
    Catalyst license: supporter
    Insider build toggle: off
    Live preview: on
    Legacy editor: off
    Base theme: dark
    Community theme: none
    Snippets enabled: 0
    Restricted mode: off
    Plugins installed: 7
    Plugins enabled: 6
    1: Find orphaned files and broken links v1.8.0
    2: Advanced Tables v0.18.1
    3: Dynamic Table of Contents v0.0.27
    4: Paste image rename v1.5.0
    5: Table of Contents v0.1.3
    6: Image Toolkit v1.3.1

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Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.


Additional information

Once I found a similar bug report (archived?) where the response was something to the effect of “blame Apple for this issue”?
That was some time back and certainly should be fixable by now. Note that Joplin generates PDFs with properly copied text.

A long shot …

Yeah… that’s one I saw previously. What’s holding back a real fix?
[Sorry… I think I replied twice… I got the whole graveyard series and only just got back here ;]

If you saw it, why did you duplicate it? It’s not archived — there’s a separate category for archived bugs.

Well…

  1. when something is called the “bug graveyard”, it implies to me that it’s dead.
  2. The last response on that was “blame it on apple,” so that also made it seem like a dead end.
  3. No recent activity that seemed to indicate there was any thought about pursuing a fix.

I can write it where ever people want it written… I just would really like it fixed. If I publish documentation using the PDF export, it looks pretty stupid that folks can’t copy from the document.

  1. You’re right, the Bug Graveyard is where resolved and discoursed bug reports — but the thread isn’t there, it’s in Bug Reports.

  2. & 3. If the developers blame an outside party and don’t plan to do anything, how is a duplicate report going to help? If the thread isn’t closed, that’s the place to post.

I agree the bug is annoying. But Obsidian’s team is small and the bug is easy to work around. And the existing report is only 2 weeks old!

1 Like

“easy to work around”? pray tell

This css snippet works (at least for me):

2 Likes

Perfect – thanks so much!

1 Like

You can use a different font, or any other Markdown app that exports to PDF.