Infection control handed me eight months of paper logs that need to be searchable for next-quarter trend analysis. I o…
Open the scanned PDF file in Adobe Acrobat.
Go to the Tools menu.
Select Scan & OCR from the tools list.
Click Recognize Text and choose In This File.
In the settings panel, ensure PDF Output Style is set to Searchable Image.
Click Recognize to start the OCR process.
Save the PDF after OCR is complete.
Best practiceFor best OCR accuracy, scan your documents at 300 dpi and ensure the images are clear before running OCR.
After OCR completes, you can search, copy, and highlight text in your previously scanned PDF.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
For the most accurate text recognition (OCR) when scanning documents, you should aim to scan at 300 dpi. While 72 dpi is the lowest setting you can use, a higher dpi like 300 will give Acrobat more detail to work with, leading to fewer errors in the recognized text.
Acrobat's 'Recognize Text' (OCR) feature is designed to work on pages that are images only, meaning they don't have a hidden text layer yet. If a page already contains real, renderable text, Acrobat will give an error because it doesn't need to create a new text layer. This feature is for converting image-based text into selectable text.
Recognizing text in a PDF creates a hidden, searchable text layer. This is very important for archiving because it means you can easily find specific information within old documents without reading every page. For indexing, it allows systems to categorize and organize documents based on their actual content, making retrieval much faster and more efficient.
Picking the correct language before running OCR is crucial for accuracy. Text recognition software uses language-specific dictionaries and rules to identify words. If you select the wrong language, the OCR engine might misinterpret characters or words, leading to many errors and making the recognized text less useful and harder to search.