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ellandriel
ellandriel
Participant
March 17, 2025
Question

Scanned a recipe book, don't want to print the background

  • March 17, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 309 views

I scanned an old recipe book and when the pages are printed the background prints, gray or off white. 
I've tried removing the background, painting it white etc. 
I am at my end! 
Is there a way for just the text to print?
I tried PDF and JPG

Thank you!

2 replies

gary_sc
Community Expert
gary_scCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 17, 2025

If you are scanning, you need to fix the image BEFORE you bring it to your computer. The catch is that most people just accept what they get when they push the scan button and fix it later. While this may work, even if it does, you will not get the best result. 

 

To get the best quality scan and thereby achieve the best quality OCR, please check this blog I wrote for Adobe some time back.

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-community-professionals/scanning-clean-searchable-pdfs/m-p/4785435?page=1#M89

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
March 17, 2025

You need to use an image editor, like Photoshop, for this type of editing.

Amal.
Community Manager
Amal.Community Manager
Community Manager
March 17, 2025

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out.

It sounds like the scanned background is being picked up as part of the image, which can make it challenging to print only the text. Here are a few steps you can try to improve the print output:

  1. Use OCR (Optical Character Recognition): If you're using Adobe Acrobat, try running the "Enhance Scans" tool (Tools > Enhance Scans > Recognize Text). This will extract the text from the image, allowing you to copy and paste it into a new document for clean printing.

  2. Adjust Print Settings: In the Acrobat print dialog, check the "Print in grayscale" option. This may help reduce background artifacts.

  3. Use the Edit Tool: After performing OCR, you can try selecting and copying the recognized text, then pasting it into a Word document or another text editor for printing without the background.

 

Let us know how it goes

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