Unable to batch OCR large number of PDFs - "cannot convert file type to pdf"

Question

I have hundreds of pdfs and I want to OCR all of them. Some of them have already been OCRd but I can't figure out which ones and I just want them all OCR'd.

I attempted to select all of them and do it all at once with the Recognize Text tool > Recognize Text in Multiple Files, but I got an error for about half of them: "cannot convert file type to pdf." But they are ALREADY pdf files and don't need to be converted. Why is this happening and how can I reach my goal of having 370 OCR'd documents?

Screenshot is attached. You can see in the background window (on the left) that each file is already a pdf.

Amal. · Answer

Hi @B Porter

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.

What happens when you try to run the OCR to the affectd files individually? Are you getting the same error message?

If the PDFs are stored on any shared network/drive, please try to download them to your computer ocally and see if that helps.

What is the version of the Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 23.06.20360 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

Also try to repair the installation from the help menu and see if that works.

For more information about using the batch process, please check the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/action-wizard-acrobat-pro.html

Let us know how it goes.

Regards

Amal

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