How to make a PDF searchable with Adobe Acrobat OCR?
Jul 08, 2025 am 12:24 AMUse Adobe Acrobat's OCR feature to convert image version PDFs into searchable, copyable text PDFs. 1. Make sure to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC or newer version, non-Reader version; 2. After opening the file, click the "Scan and OCR" tool and select "Enhanced Scan" to perform OCR processing; 3. Set the recognition language and improve contrast to improve accuracy; 4. After completion, verify the recognition effect by copying text or searching for keywords. If the recognition is incorrect, adjust the settings and run it again.
If you scan a paper document or receive a PDF file in an image and want it to be a searchable, copyable text PDF, Adobe Acrobat's OCR feature comes in handy. OCR (optical character recognition) can recognize the text content in the image, making PDF "live".

1. Make sure you are using Adobe Acrobat Pro
Not all versions of Acrobat support OCR. You need to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC or later. If you only have Reader version, that won't work. You have to find someone else to help you with it or use other tools.

2. Open the PDF file and start the OCR tool
After opening Acrobat Pro, load the PDF file you want to process. Then follow the steps below:
- Click "Scan and OCR" in the right panel (If you don't see this option, you can click "Tools" > "Scan and OCR" in the top menu bar)
- Click the 'Scan' button in the "Scan and OCR" panel . Even if you already have a PDF, this step is actually to perform OCR processing.
- Click "Enhanced Scan" in the pop-up window
- Then click "Use OCR to identify text"
At this time, Acrobat will start analyzing the content of each page and extracting text information.

3. Set up OCR language and other options
Before performing OCR, it is recommended to set up a recognition language, which has a great impact on recognition accuracy:
- Click "Recognize text settings"
- Select the main language used in the "Language" drop-down menu, such as Chinese, English, Japanese, etc.
- If it is a bilingual mixed document, you can choose multiple languages ??(if supported)
Some documents may have blurred handwriting or complex background. At this time, you can check "Try to increase contrast to improve results" to help the system better identify text.
4. Check whether OCR is successful
After completing OCR, you can try copying a certain text and pasting it into notepad to see if the text can be pasted normally. You can also directly press Ctrl F to find keywords. If you can find the text, OCR will be successful.
If you accidentally recognize a wrong word, such as identifying "technology" as "private technology", you can consider exporting it as an editable format and modifying it, or re-running OCR and adjusting the settings.
Basically these steps. OCR is not 100% accurate, especially handwritten or low-resolution images, but works well for most printed documents. The key is to remember to set the language, confirm the software version, and do simple verification after completion.
The above is the detailed content of How to make a PDF searchable with Adobe Acrobat OCR?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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