Scan documents and OCR

Question

How can I do the OCR after Scan?

Pariah Burke · Accepted Answer

Note: I'm assuming you're using the standard (aka "Classic") Acrobat interface rather than the much maligned "New Acrobat". If you are, in fact, using the New Acrobat, swap "left" for "right" and try to find similar commands.

Open Adobe Acrobat Pro:
- Launch Adobe Acrobat Pro on your computer.
Open the Scanned PDF:
- Click on File in the top-left menu and select Open.
- Browse to the location of your scanned PDF file, select it, and click Open.
Access the OCR Tool:
- On the right-hand toolbar, locate and click on Scan & OCR.
  - If you don’t see the Scan & OCR option, click More Tools at the bottom of the toolbar and find Scan & OCR in the list. Click Add to make it accessible in the toolbar for future use.
Select OCR Settings:
- After selecting Scan & OCR, a panel will open on the right.
- Click on Recognize Text and select In This File.
Set Language and Output Options:
- In the OCR settings window:
  - Language: Choose the language of the text in your scanned document by clicking the dropdown menu under Recognize Text Options > Language.
  - Output: Ensure that Editable Text and Images is selected under the Output dropdown menu. This option allows for editable and searchable text in the PDF.
Start OCR:
- Click the Recognize Text button to begin the OCR process.
- Adobe Acrobat Pro will process the document. This may take a few seconds to several minutes depending on the size of the document and your computer's processing power.
Review and Edit:
- Once the OCR process is complete, the text in the document will be searchable and editable.
- Scroll through the document to verify the accuracy of the text. Use the Edit PDF tool (found in the right-hand toolbar) if you need to correct any errors in the recognized text.
Save the OCR Processed PDF:
- Click File and then Save As to save the updated, OCR-processed PDF.
- Choose a location on your computer, enter a file name, and click Save.
Test the OCR:
- Open the saved PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro and use Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac) to search for specific words to confirm that the OCR worked as expected.

peter marsh · Answer

I have been using Acrobat DC for decades and have always been able to rely on it working. My job is to scan some important documents and send them to my accountant. Coming across from my scanner the files are too large as they are images. I want to convert them to scanned OCR documents which I have used since the mid 80’s. It’s incredibly useful, shrinking file sizes down to a fraction of the image based original.

I have scanned a document, it’s 35Mb and too large to send by eMail. I go to the “Scan and OCR” button under “All Tools”, click it and wait for the familiar dialogue to then drive the OCR’ing of the document. This file would likely end up 2Mb, easily within my eMail size limit. But nothing happens.

I checked for an update to fix the problem but a look says I am up to date!

Any suggestions?

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