diff --git a/src/evaluator.js b/src/evaluator.js
index e07394201..23c9d1f65 100644
--- a/src/evaluator.js
+++ b/src/evaluator.js
@@ -481,7 +481,7 @@ var PartialEvaluator = (function PartialEvaluatorClosure() {
       var toUnicode = dict.get('ToUnicode') ||
         baseDict.get('ToUnicode');
       if (toUnicode)
-        properties.toUnicode = this.readToUnicode(toUnicode, xref);
+        properties.toUnicode = this.readToUnicode(toUnicode, xref, properties);
 
       if (properties.composite) {
         // CIDSystemInfo helps to match CID to glyphs
@@ -537,7 +537,8 @@ var PartialEvaluator = (function PartialEvaluatorClosure() {
       properties.hasEncoding = hasEncoding;
     },
 
-    readToUnicode: function PartialEvaluator_readToUnicode(toUnicode, xref) {
+    readToUnicode: function PartialEvaluator_readToUnicode(toUnicode, xref,
+                                                           properties) {
       var cmapObj = toUnicode;
       var charToUnicode = [];
       if (isName(cmapObj)) {
@@ -626,6 +627,10 @@ var PartialEvaluator = (function PartialEvaluatorClosure() {
             }
           } else if (octet == 0x3E) {
             if (token.length) {
+              // XXX guessing chars size by checking number size in the CMap
+              if (token.length <= 2 && properties.composite)
+                properties.wideChars = false;
+
               if (token.length <= 4) {
                 // parsing hex number
                 tokens.push(parseInt(token, 16));
@@ -843,6 +848,7 @@ var PartialEvaluator = (function PartialEvaluatorClosure() {
         length1: length1,
         length2: length2,
         composite: composite,
+        wideChars: composite,
         fixedPitch: false,
         fontMatrix: dict.get('FontMatrix') || IDENTITY_MATRIX,
         firstChar: firstChar || 0,
diff --git a/src/fonts.js b/src/fonts.js
index 7bd3ddd06..22037e724 100644
--- a/src/fonts.js
+++ b/src/fonts.js
@@ -789,6 +789,7 @@ var Font = (function FontClosure() {
     this.widths = properties.widths;
     this.defaultWidth = properties.defaultWidth;
     this.composite = properties.composite;
+    this.wideChars = properties.wideChars;
     this.hasEncoding = properties.hasEncoding;
 
     this.fontMatrix = properties.fontMatrix;
@@ -2520,7 +2521,7 @@ var Font = (function FontClosure() {
 
       glyphs = [];
 
-      if (this.composite) {
+      if (this.wideChars) {
         // composite fonts have multi-byte strings convert the string from
         // single-byte to multi-byte
         // XXX assuming CIDFonts are two-byte - later need to extract the
diff --git a/test/pdfs/issue1597.pdf.link b/test/pdfs/issue1597.pdf.link
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..94d54084e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/pdfs/issue1597.pdf.link
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+http://content1d.omroep.nl/227cbd4ae54f95dd466a7a8475fec2ea/4f95b377/nos/docs/230412_brief_koningin.pdf
diff --git a/test/test_manifest.json b/test/test_manifest.json
index b6879e1ec..38e7d7ed2 100644
--- a/test/test_manifest.json
+++ b/test/test_manifest.json
@@ -560,6 +560,13 @@
       "link": true,
       "type": "eq"
     },
+    {  "id": "issue1597",
+      "file": "pdfs/issue1597.pdf",
+      "md5": "a5ebef467fd6e2fc0aeb56c9eb725ae3",
+      "rounds": 1,
+      "link": true,
+      "type": "eq"
+    },
     {  "id": "issue1317",
       "file": "pdfs/issue1317.pdf",
       "md5": "6fb46275b30c48c8985617d4f86199e3",