Of course Acrobat Reader doesn't handle it well since it's an inherent design flaw of the format despite your trying to deny the obvious. Just tried it - same issue, a paragraph of 3 lines is pasted as 3 lines
> PDF file format (which supports semantic paragraph tags, for example).
These are called newlines and have a pretty widespread support outside of some paper pockets of resistance! You only need some other semantic tags because the format fails at basics
(but don't look at the annual report, that marvel of a public disclosure document not only doesn't copy&paste paragraphs, but has another nice niche use of PDF - you get garbage chars instead of text, rather ironic)
I tried a few documents and got the same result (ie. each line being treated as separate paragraphs), but was able to find that the fed FOMC meeting doc[1] actually worked properly, but only on adobe acrobat. It was still screwed up on pdf.js. So I guess the format itself technically supports it, but implementations rarely do it properly.
The first two work just fine in Adobe Acrobat Reader on iOS. The third is garbage, probably because the producer didn't include a ToUnicode map or equivalent.
The format supports a lot that is not commonly implemented by PDF readers (or PDF producers).
And a good format wouldn't require any ToUnicode maps for simple text in the first place
And poorly supporting a lot without common implementations isn't a defence against the charge of high complexity and bad design, but a reinforcement thereof
(also, no, the first document doesn't work on iOS, I select title and two paragraphs, copy, paste, and I get a single line instead of 3, so a different manifestation of the same common fail of PDFs)
> PDF file format (which supports semantic paragraph tags, for example).
These are called newlines and have a pretty widespread support outside of some paper pockets of resistance! You only need some other semantic tags because the format fails at basics