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Eager Beager
Inspiring
April 9, 2015
Answered

Need option to disable automatic Convert to Text

  • April 9, 2015
  • 17 replies
  • 24368 views

Using Acrobat DC under Mac.

  1. So I open a PDF that is composed of multiple scanned pages.
  2. From the (Tools?) panel, I click Edit PDF.
  3. As I flip through the pages, I realize that Acrobat is automatically applying "Convert to Text"
  4. However, I don't want this, and there is no way to turn this off. This is terribly inconvenient and distracting.

For the Settings, please add an option to disable automatic conversion. Not sure why I'm having to ask for this.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer MattyTomTom

    Thought I'd copy over the answer from Adobe from another very similar post.  Thanks Adobe, you got there in the end.

    Bilal Ansari

    Correct Answer by Bilal Ansari on Oct 16, 2015 8:33 PM

    Hi everyone,

    Thanks for your patience. We understand that this is an annoying behaviour and now we have a solution for you. In the latest version of Acrobat DC, you can disable the "auto convert to text".

    Just open any scanned PDF and click on Edit PDF. On first launch, Acrobat will convert the image to text. Now all you have to do is click on the 'Revert to Image' button on the Right Hand Pane. Acrobat now remembers this setting and will not convert any scanned document to text unless you change it from here.

    17 replies

    D
    defaultfv9rbli2zh04
    Participant
    February 26, 2022
    1.  Open pdf in Acrobat
    2. Wait for the first page to be scanned, or cancel immediately (this time only)
    3. Select Edit menu
    4. Uncheck "Recognize Text" under settings (this will prevent future)
    5.  Close and open any document.

     

    Slowly26354
    Slowly26354
    Participant
    January 19, 2018

    ...not only does it do this automatically - but it DOESN'T SAVE WHAT IT DOES, and so every time you open the document it does this over and over and over again! for a 1000 page book, it's frikkin annoying!!

    John BonifasData EngineerMS, Geographic Information EngineeringBS, GeographyBS, Applied Computing Data Engineering FocusThe Boeing Co., 1988 - 2007https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbonifas/http://www.deckerd26354.net/sites/blog/http://www.deckerd26354.net/sites/AboutMeLocal/
    E
    em9799031
    Participant
    May 8, 2017

    How can I disable this alert?  The question doesn't even allow a NO!  The scan takes so long and freezes Adobe occasionally.

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    May 8, 2017

    Cancel means No.

    R
    ravin30000
    Participant
    January 2, 2017

    Open tools and then enter what you want to do in search. It will give you the specific option to you want do. But yeah, automatically formatting is stupid!!!!

    robinsonalexh
    robinsonalexh
    Participating Frequently
    May 10, 2016

    Terrible feature flaw, please rectify, albeit it's too late for me.

      M
      MattyTomTomCorrect answer
      Participating Frequently
      November 27, 2015

      Thought I'd copy over the answer from Adobe from another very similar post.  Thanks Adobe, you got there in the end.

      Bilal Ansari

      Correct Answer by Bilal Ansari on Oct 16, 2015 8:33 PM

      Hi everyone,

      Thanks for your patience. We understand that this is an annoying behaviour and now we have a solution for you. In the latest version of Acrobat DC, you can disable the "auto convert to text".

      Just open any scanned PDF and click on Edit PDF. On first launch, Acrobat will convert the image to text. Now all you have to do is click on the 'Revert to Image' button on the Right Hand Pane. Acrobat now remembers this setting and will not convert any scanned document to text unless you change it from here.

        TheMikeBaldwin
        TheMikeBaldwin
        Participant
        April 29, 2016

        That's an asinine fix. I don't want to convert back every time, I just want to edit the damn file without converting anything.

          je___
          je___
          Participant
          May 9, 2016

          I just did this.  You won't have to convert back every time, but every time you do something different than last time, you are toggling the default, so the "asinine" verdict stands.

            J
            jonathanb98990059
            Participant
            September 25, 2015

            I second all of the above.  There HAS to be a way to turn the auto feature off.  Otherwise I'll have to just use the older version.

            M
            MattyTomTom
            Participating Frequently
            September 15, 2015

            Could we get a response from an Adobe representative on this? This is incredibly frustrating and the solution seems quite simple, and required by a great many of your users.

              J
              jimm61627157
              Participant
              August 31, 2015

              I agree as well. I open a lot of PDF files to crop the page down to the image and I don't need the OCR to run. Sometimes when it runs it also rotates the page and/or corrupts the image. Please give me an option for turn this off.

              Bernd Alheit
              Community Expert
              Bernd AlheitCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              September 15, 2015

              jimm61627157 wrote:

              I agree as well. I open a lot of PDF files to crop the page down to the image and I don't need the OCR to run. Sometimes when it runs it also rotates the page and/or corrupts the image. Please give me an option for turn this off.

              You can open the Page Thumbnails and use Crop Pages...

              J
              JohnVann
              Participant
              August 31, 2015

              I am adding my concurrence with the opinions above.  The need to edit a page does *not* imply that OCR is needed.  I would prefer that it is disabled by default with an option to make it automatic for those that need it.  The development team's immediate attention to this issue is greatly appreciated.

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