Need option to disable automatic Convert to Text

Report · Apr 09, 2015

Using Acrobat DC under Mac.

So I open a PDF that is composed of multiple scanned pages.
From the (Tools?) panel, I click Edit PDF.
As I flip through the pages, I realize that Acrobat is automatically applying "Convert to Text"
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.

Report · Nov 27, 2015

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.

View solution in original post

Report · Jan 02, 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!!!!

Report · May 08, 2017

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

Report · May 08, 2017

Cancel means No.

Report · Jan 18, 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 Bonifas
Data Engineer
MS, Geographic Information Engineering
BS, Geography
BS, Applied Computing Data Engineering Focus
The Boeing Co., 1988 - 2007
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbonifas/
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Report · Feb 26, 2022

Open pdf in Acrobat
Wait for the first page to be scanned, or cancel immediately (this time only)
Select Edit menu
Uncheck "Recognize Text" under settings (this will prevent future)
Close and open any document.