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suzanner44792545
Participant
January 3, 2018
Answered

Searching text of pdf

  • January 3, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 2351 views

I'm unable to search a pdf that I've opened in Acrobat Reader (I have an Export account).  When I do, the response is always that the text phrase cannot be found (even though it IS in the document).  Do I need to convert the document?  Or do something else to enable it to be searched?  Please advise.  Thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer ~graffiti

    With Adobe ExportPDF, you should be able to perform OCR on pdf files. Here are instructions on how to do that: Using OCR in Adobe Export PDF, Document Cloud, Reader

    1 reply

    ~graffiti
    Legend
    January 3, 2018

    That depends. The most common cause for not being able to search a pdf is because the pdf is a scanned document which only contains images and no live text to search for. You need to run Optical Character Recognition to convert it back to text. Adobe Acrobat Reader does not have that ability.

    suzanner44792545
    Participant
    January 3, 2018

    Via my "Export" account, do I have the ability to run OCR?  I can convert the document to RTF or even to Word -- must I do that?  If I were to upgrade my account in some way, would that enable me to search the document for text phrases?  Or to save it in a different format that would be searchable?  Thanks!

    ~graffiti
    ~graffitiCorrect answer
    Legend
    January 3, 2018

    With Adobe ExportPDF, you should be able to perform OCR on pdf files. Here are instructions on how to do that: Using OCR in Adobe Export PDF, Document Cloud, Reader