

You can search the text, select it with the Select tool, and copy the selection.

If you chose to make a searchable image, the resulting pdf pages will look the same as they did before, but now all of the text tools will work on the apparently bitmapped text. Click the OK button to start the ocr process.Īcrobat will process the bitmapped pages. Click the OK button to return to the Recognize Text dialog box.ħ. The lower the downsampled resolution, the faster the processing, but the less-accurate will be the character recognition. When Acrobat performs ocr, it reduces the resolution of the image to speed up the processing. Pick a resolution to which Acrobat can reduce the image when doing the ocr. Select a language to be used in the ocr conversion.Īcrobat 7 provides a list of a dozen or so languages from which you may choose.Ħ. Formatted Text & Graphics - Acrobat replaces each full-page image with real text and line art, doing its best to match the original font.5.Searchable Image (Compact) - Acrobat creates a searchable image, but uses a faster and slightly less-accurate ocr method.Searchable Image (Exact) - Acrobat creates a searchable image using a very accurate algorithm to convert the text.In the PDF Output Style popup menu, select the type of conversion you want Acrobat to perform. Most of the time, you will probably choose All pages.Īcrobat will present you with the Recognize Text Settings dialog box, on the next page.Ĥ. Choose the radio button corresponding to the pages you want converted to a searchable image. With the scanned document open, select Document>Recognize Text Using OCR>Start.Acrobat will present you with the Recognize Text dialog box.Ģ. Both are free.To convert a pdf image document to a searchable image or to text and graphics, do the following:ġ. I highly recommend SumatraPDF or MuPDF if you're after something a bit more. You may or may not need an add-on or extension to do it, but it's pretty handy to have one open automatically when you click a PDF link online. Most web browsers, like both Chrome and Firefox, can open PDFs themselves. It's completely fine to use, but I find it to be a somewhat bloated program with lots of features that you may never need or want to use.

Adobe created the PDF standard and its program is certainly the most popular free PDF reader out there. Most people head right to Adobe Acrobat Reader when they need to open a PDF.

PDF files always look identical on any device or operating system. The reason PDF is so widely popular is that it can preserve original document formatting. The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a universal file format that comprises characteristics of both text documents and graphic images which makes it one of the most commonly used file types today.
