Need option to disable automatic Convert to Text

[Eager Beager]

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.

[Bernd Alheit]

Want you edit the document content or not?

‌

[Eager Beager]

Hi Bernd,

I see that your English is a little weak, but I believe that you are asking, "Why did you click 'Convert to Text' and not expect that all of the pages would be converted automatically."

Well, in a situation where I am working with a single page out of a collection, I need the following:

1. Cursor down to the page that I need, without the pages being converted automatically.
2. When I get to the page that I need, I click "Convert to Text."

There needs to be an option to turn off automatic conversion.

Thanks

[DeniseSullivan]

Using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for Windows

I not editing the content of the document.  I wanted to add text.  When you click the edit pdf icon, it automatically begins to convert the document to text.  This is really annoying.  Please remove the auto convert to text or give an option to turn this off.

[Chris Edwards]

Agreed. Same as DeniseSullivan here, I need to add text not edit existing text and so the conversion is (apart from slowing things down) extremely unstable and causing "Internal error has occurred" errors and crashes.

I'd use comment mode, but the text there has fewer options for formating (Can't immediately see way to change colour of text?).

Please make the automatic conversion an option!

[davids424057]

I, too, am finding the inability to turn off the automatic conversion a major annoyance. Often on complex pages, the program just crashes.

Many times I only wish to edit the image, not convert it to editable text. I have found that when I do want conversion to editable text, the program does a great job. I just really need to make it not automatic. I would like (need, really) to have the option to turn it off.

[jimm61627157]

Some of the PDF functions (Add text, Crop page) can be added to the toolbar. When you open a PDF you can then bypass the Edit PDF tool and select the desired function directly.

[jonathanb98990059]

Thanks much! That was very helpful.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 4:20 PM, jimm61627157 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[jeffreyo3783012]

I cannot see how to add "Crop pages" to the toolbar. under View --> Show/Hide --> Toolbar Items it is not an option. (I have Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2015.) I want to crop parts of different 16th century scanned books as images, and the conversion mangles them beyond recognition. Importing them to MS Word and cropping them there reduces the resolution considerably, so that doesn't work.

[Bernd Alheit]

Use "Customize Quick Tools".

[edw13959495]

I'm using the trial version and plan to purchase a PDF editor soon.  So far I find Acrobat to be a superior product but this automatic conversion without any option to disable it is just too much of an annoyance for me to consider purchasing it .  Like David, I am also experiencing crashes on complex pages when the conversion is occurring.

[lovemy adobestuff]

Auto-recognition goofs the original document after running recognition so not sure how it would help.

[kalbrandon]

I agree. There are several situations where I need to preserve the images and outlined text, without having Acrobat automatically detect and convert text (for example, logos, images, etc.).

Please make automatic recognition optional!

[GeekMom]

I have lost so much time undoing the automatic recognitions.  PLEASE fix this ASAP!!!!!

[darylm68046216]

Please, please allow us to disable this automatic document conversion!!! I scan documents all day long sometimes just need to enhance the background of the scan to make the watermark readable and I don't need to have all the text suddenly editable. On a 30 page scanned document, I'm wasting almost 5 minutes waiting for the conversion and then undoing it.

[MattyTomTom]

Agree with all the above. This needs fixing. Though I understand the rationale behind the recognition, it's incredibly inconvenient to me several times a day. e.g. Today I need to recreate a business card, like for like, from a pdf. I need to extract the bitmap and at present cannot. The only option is to rasterize the pdf which is frustrating to say the least.  PLEASE FIX!

[JohnVann]

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.

[jimm61627157]

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]

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...

[MattyTomTom]

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.

[jonathanb98990059]

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.

[MattyTomTom · Accepted solution]

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

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]

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___]

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.

[robinsonalexh]

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