How to make a scanned PDF searchable
What OCR does to a scan, how to run it, and how to check the text it wrote.
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Open OCR PDFA scanned PDF is a stack of page pictures. You can see the words but you cannot select, search or copy them. OCR looks at each picture, recognises the letters and adds them to the file as text.
Run OCR on the whole file, then test the result: search for a word you know is on page one and for a number from the last page. If the search finds both, the text layer is there. Sharp, straight scans give the best text, so rescan a blurred page instead of correcting it by hand.
Proofread names and figures after OCR. Those are the characters it confuses most often, such as 0 and O or 1 and l.
Questions people ask about OCR PDF
What does OCR do to a scanned PDF?
It reads the picture of each page, recognises the letters and adds them to the file as text, so you can select, search and copy.
How can I check that OCR worked?
Search for a word you know is on page one and for a number from the last page. If both are found, the text layer is there.
Which characters should I proofread after OCR?
Names and figures. OCR most often confuses characters such as 0 and O or 1 and l.
About the author
indox Team
Staff writers, PDF and document toolsThe people who build and test the indox document tools write these guides from what they see in daily use.