How to create selectable and searchable text in a PDF from AutoCAD

Causes:

• An SHX font was used for text. SHX fonts are rasterized (i.e., become a graphic image) when plotted to PDF unless AutoCAD 2016 or newer is used, but then with limitations.
• The PDF was created by AutoCAD for Mac, in which case both SHX and TTF fonts are raterized during the PDF creation.

Solution:

To have searchable text in a PDF from AutoCAD: 

1. Use TrueType fonts for text intended to be searchable (mtext, dimensions, etc.).
2. For TrueType fonts, do not alter the text from the original font, such as changing width (must be 1.0) or other style options.
3. Make sure the Z coordinate value of the text object is zero.
4. If SHX fonts are used, set the PDFSHX variable to 1 (for AutoCAD 2017 and later; EPDFSHX for AutoCAD 2016). There is no AutoCAD option or feature to make SHX searchable in a PDF in AutoCAD 2015 and earlier.

TrueType Fonts
Changing text objects so that they have no Z coordinate can be done by using the Express Tools command FLATTEN or by selecting the text and changing the Z value in the Properties palette to zero. Additionally, the following may accomplish this:

1. At the command line in AutoCAD, enter DVIEW and then select all in your drawing.
2. Enter PO (POints).
3. Type in 0,0,0 for the target point.
4. Type in 0,0,1 for the camera point.

If may be necessary to select the "Capture All" option in the DWG To PDF.pc3 properties:

1. In the plot window, select DWG To PDF.pc3 for the printer.
2. Click the Properties button.
3. In the Custom Properties section, click the Custom Properties button.
4. Click the "Capture All" option under Font Handling.
5. Click OK to dismiss the DWG to PDF Properties dialog.
6. Click OK to dismiss the Plotter Configuration Editor.
7. Click OK to confirm changes to the PC3 Plotter Configuration file.

SHX Fonts
If using SHX fonts, the latest versions of AutoCAD and DWG TrueView (2016 and newer) can be used to plot to the AutoCAD PDF drivers. All SHX fonts will be converted into PDF comments, which can then be searched in Adobe Reader and other PDF-viewing programs. Usually, the default search/find commands do not include PDF comments in searches, so be sure to change that setting. In the text search box in Adobe Reader, click the gear settings menu and choose "Include Comments."

To move away from having text in PDF comments, there is an application included with Adobe Acrobat called PDFMaker. This does not come with Reader. The full version of Acrobat is required. This application has the ability to generate a placeholder font in the PDF for all the SHX text in an AutoCAD drawing. Using PDFMaker to create the PDF instead of plotting to PDF from within AutoCAD, will result in searchable text in the PDF even, for text which uses an SHX font. There is a toolbar button in AutoCAD for PDFMaker. It is also possible to right-click a DWG file in Windows and choose the "Convert to Adobe PDF" option. DWG files can also be converted to PDF by PDFMaker even if AutoCAD itself is not installed. Please refer to the following Adobe article:

 
The section about AutoCAD is far down the page. There is a jump link at the top which can be used.

PDFMaker only works with certain versions of the AutoCAD DWG format. Here is a chart from Adobe that lists various web browsers and applications, including which versions of AutoCAD they work with (AutoCAD is shown all the way at the bottom of the web page):
 

AutoCAD for Mac products

Starting with version 2018, AutoCAD for Mac can create PDFs with searchable text. Versions prior to 2018 relied upon the built-in PDF creation abilities of the Mac OS, so there was no way to generate a PDF with searchable text.