You are trying to pull a "god" out of the Machine. Your "god from the Machine" will not rescue you. He is weak and impotent. :)
You don't know that. All you know is that there was no searchable text in the PDF file posted online. The final PDF was apparently prepared on a Mac. It is possible--just possible, mind you--that the original scan was done in software that could read the OCR layer, but was then converted using something else that stripped that layer out.
This is all just a hypothetical exercise in how computer programs might have produced the anomalies we see without intentional manipulation. I still find that scenario easier to swallow than the idea that someone copied bits and pieces of lots of different documents--one capital 'R' from this one, a different capital 'R' from another one--and assembled them into a file that reveals layers in Illustrator but not Photoshop.
if you can demonstrate how all this was done through OCR and optimization, do it. It would settle many of the issues.
I have scanned similar documents on a mac with many different settings, including optimize for OCR.
Nothing like the problems that show up occur on *any* of my scans.
- no layers
- no issues with character fuzziness disappearing
- no partial words falling to another layer
- no differing pixel sizes
- no solid black words/letters
(you get the point)
You claim that the process done by the WH included OCR and then somehow undid it?
You do realize that a text search on the WH_LFCOLB.pdf comes up with zero results for any text. Right?
The technical specs in the file show the programs used - if you think some crazy process was followed, do us all a favor and replicate it.
(I tried with a mac scanning and pdf conversion program - it it does not even come close.)
You are trying to pull a "god" out of the Machine. Your "god from the Machine" will not rescue you. He is weak and impotent. :)