Our PDFs are flattened, which makes them print-ready, as recommended by printers to prevent any issues during the printing process. Think of them like a flat page in a book or an image. The text is not meant to be extracted. Since our PDFs are designed to be used in print copies, we must do this to maintain the large amount of formatting required to create the PDF and ensure everything fits properly when the book is printed.
Since this is the case, you will likely see strange characters come from copying and pasting from the PDF or trying to look into the underlying layers. If you want a version for you to copy, we recommend using the DOCX file, which you can also export from Atticus. This will give you a document set in plain text, which you can use as a base manuscript for future edits.