Add OCR to PDF

[davemchine]

I have a 20 page PDF but I can't search for text in it. Is there a way to OCR it for this purpose?

[space-time]

I did that with Adobe Acrobat.

EDIT; you can probably do it online

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pdf+ocr&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[Fritz]

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pdf-ocr-x-...2933?mt=12

[ADent]

https://www.leadtools.com/apps/ocr

Free, but awkward to use.

[pdq]

davemchine wrote:
I have a 20 page PDF but I can't search for text in it. Is there a way to OCR it for this purpose?

Really? I thought Preview could search pdfs. Or is your pdf really a scan/image in pdf form?

[Robert M]

pdq,

Preview can but it depends on the file. If the file is a searchable PDF, Preview can open it and search in it. What Dave is asking is for software that can turn an existing PDF into a searchable PDF. Preview can't do that. Neither can Image Capture. He needs something like the recommendations posted already. Once he uses one of those apps to convert the PDF into a searchable PDF, he can then open it in Preview and search within it.

Image Capture easily scans docs and turns them into PDFs. But, they aren't searchable. It's more like a scanned photo. You can open the file, look at the file, print it. You cannot search for keywords and phrases, select text in it for copying and pasting. Open the file with Preview and it's like opening a JPG file.

Fujitsu ScanSnap Home, which is included with its ScanSnap scanners, has an option to scan docs and turn them into searchable PDFs. That means, the hardware scans the document, the software works its magic, saves it as a PDF. Once you open the file in Preview, the text in it is searchable, you can select words and phrases, copy and paste words and phrases, etc.

Preview itself can scan but it uses the same scanning software engine as Image Capture. If you want to scan a file and create a searchable PDF out of it, you'll need to use different software.

Robert

[davemchine]

ADents suggesting worked great. The app is a little clunky but it only took a few minutes to add text search to my document. Thanks for the tip!