Adobe Acrobat Pro: Turning Files into Editable Text and Images

Utilizing Adobe Acrobat Pro, users can convert scanned documents and image files using optical character recognition (OCR) into searchable and editable PDF documents. Acrobat Pro allows users to put entire files through the OCR process through one dedicated digital scan and conversion of the file, or page by page while editing the file. A file or page is already OCRed if you can highlight text on the page/in the document.

Scan & OCR

To OCR an entire file through one dedicated digital scan and conversion, utilize the “Scan & OCR” feature: 

1. Open the file in Acrobat Pro.

2. Select the “Scan & OCR” shortcut in the features and tools navigation column, on the right hand side of your window. Expanded options will appear below the toolbar at the top of your window. If the shortcut is not present:

   1. Select the “More Tools” option at the bottom of the navigation column, or select the “Tools” tab on the navigation bar of your window. 
   2. Under the Create & Edit section of tools, select the “Add” button below the “Scan & OCR” feature icon. The feature will now have a shortcut in the features and tools navigation column.

3. Select the “Recognize Text” option amongst the expanded options bar. From the popup options select “In This File.” An additional expanded options bar will appear. 

4. On the new options bar, for Pages make sure that “All Pages” is selected and that for Language the appropriate language of the document is selected, the default is "English (US)."

5. Select the “Settings” option on the same bar and confirm those selections in the popup menu and that the Output is set to “Editable Text and Images” and the Downsample To is set to “600 dpi;” afterwards select the “OK” button on the bottom right corner of the popup window. 

6. Select the “Recognize Text” button to OCR your file. 

   • If an error window that reads “Acrobat could not perform recognition because: This page contains renderable text,” appears, select the “Ignore future errors in this document” option at the bottom of the window, and select “OK.”

Edit PDF

To OCR a file while editing/cleaning up the file, one page at a time, utilize the “Edit PDF” feature: 

1. Have the file open on the page you would like to begin working on in Acrobat Pro.

2. Select the “Edit PDF” shortcut in the features and tools navigation column, on the right hand side of your window. The page will go through the OCR process and become editable. Expanded options will also appear. If the shortcut is not present:

   1. Select the “More Tools” option at the bottom of the navigation column, or select the “Tools” tab on the navigation bar of your window. 
   2. Under the Create & Edit section of tools, select the “Add” button below the “Edit PDF” feature icon. The feature will now have a shortcut in the features and tools navigation column.

3. Utilize the expanded options to edit the page as you would like.

Acknowledgements

Created by Mike Kombate, 12/7/2022