The pages of files in some formats may contain text, images and drawn objects, while other formats may contain only an image. EscapeE 'eE' iconEscapeE has a number of features for handling the text so that you can configure it to suit the required task.

The choice of option also affects the size of the exported file. A bitmapped image of a page of text, for example, is likely to be larger than a file which contains the "real" text in a font resident on the printer.

Click to expand/collaose hidden textRender as a graphic

This produces an accurate image of each page in the file, including its text. The 'text', while readable by people, is merely ink marks to a computer. The content is not preserved as characters in the file and cannot be searched or processed directly, but it does eliminate possible font problems.

Checking the Include text as well as the graphic option available in some formats (PCL, PDF, PDF/A, PS) does, however, add the textual data to the document in a computer-usable form. This data, though unseen by the User viewing the page image, may be searched by the computer.

Tip:  Optical character recognition techniques may allow characters to be matched to their shapes in an image of text: see Other plugins.

Click to expand/collaose hidden textRender all but text as a graphic

This outputs the page as an accurate image of all the non-text items on the page with the textual content written on top (see also Keep original element order below). The text can be read by people and processed by computers.

Click to expand/collaose hidden textInclude text as well as the graphic

When rendering as graphics to some formats you may also choose to Include text as well as the graphic. The textual data is sent along with the page image so that the computer can search it, but you cannot edit the text directly.

See also Render all but text as graphic.

Click to expand/collaose hidden textKeep original element order

EscapeE normally places text (and drawn lines) on top of images to avoid opaque elements (such as shaded areas) in the images covering the text. You may override this by selecting the Keep original element order option.

Click to expand/collaose hidden textCombine text strings together

When you opt to Combine text strings together, EscapeE assesses the positioning of the words and attempts to concatenate those likely to be part of a continuous string.

While this can improve search performance in documents with normal formatting, the results may sometimes be unsatisfactory in others. (For example, where each character has been dragged into position manually for visual effect rather than readability.)

Blue diamond bullet Tip: double-byte fonts (e.g. Chinese characters, currency symbols, box-drawing characters) are rendered as graphics, not text.