Figma to PDF -- readable by resume scanner software?

Hello world,

I made my resume on Figma. When I export as PDF and then open in Adobe Acrobat Reader, I can’t properly highlight text. I try to copy and paste from it and I notice that it pastes as a string of garbage. Does this mean that my resume will have problems being read by employers’ resume-scanning software?

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Yes, that is correct – the exported PDF will be unreadable by ATS software :confused:

I’m also looking for a solution to this because I’d love to keep my resume in Figma, but it’s not currently a viable option.

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Thanks for confirming @Brandon6. Such a bummer. I really wish I had considered this before I so painstakingly designed the thing in Figma…even set it up with “components” and “auto-layout” for quick updating later. Thought I was so clever. :expressionless:

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Yep, I also discovered this in hindsight, lol

I’m going to explore a few plugins to see if any that offer expanded PDF export options might help.

I use Figma for my resume as well but I have no issue with highlighting my text when I export it as PDF. I don’t do anything special for it either, I do use a plugin called Tinyiamge Compressor to keep the file size small.

Hi @MayZ , I’m able to highlight. But when I copy and paste it comes out corrupted. Example: †$€#‹#A#e!ƒ†A „† eA‹"$vve!

And when I opened the file in TextEdit, I also observed there that the text strings were corrupted.

Can you run this test with your resume? Are you sure the text comes through in a readable format? I’m not familiar with the Tinyimage Compressor plugin but I wonder if that is a true workaround…

Please report back if you find something!

Oof I just did a quick test with two PDF files exported from Figma:

  1. Direct export without the plugin, you were right, I do see strings of garbage when I copy and paste the text.

  2. Export through Tinyimage Compressor, I am able to copy-paste the text (the bullet points show up as a box), however, I do notice sometimes the last letter in the sentence shows up as some weird symbol too…

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