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Enlightened_worldview15A8
Participating Frequently
May 19, 2015
Answered

Turn off / disable Convert to Text Option in Acrobat Pro DC

  • May 19, 2015
  • 16 replies
  • 62167 views

Since the update on Acrobat to Pro DC, I keep having to click on Revert to Image, which would be fine but sometimes to revert to image, it undoes the changes I may have recently changed. The only workaround I found was to make changes on the picture (in Photoshop) then save the PDF, close it and reopen to make additional changes. I cannot stress this enough, I NEED the fonts to stay outlined so I don't get any errors when transferring postscripts from PC to Mac. And I'm talking about files that are exported from other programs, not scanned.

Anyone know how to disable the Convert to Text option?

    Correct answer AnandSri

    PS: You cannot convert an image to text with Acrobat. You seem to say that you can OCR an image, and that is not true. 

     


    Hello!

     

    I hope you are doing well.

     

    To disable the automatic conversion of scanned documents to editable text (OCR) in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, follow these steps:

     

    • Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC:

      • Launch Adobe Acrobat and open your scanned document.​

    • Access the 'Edit PDF' Tool:

      • Click on the "Tools" tab. 

      • Select "Edit PDF" from the available options.​

    • Disable Automatic OCR:

      • In the right pane, locate and uncheck the "Recognize text" option. This prevents Acrobat from automatically running OCR on scanned documents in the future.

    By unchecking the "Recognize text" option, Acrobat will no longer automatically convert scanned documents to editable text during editing. For more detailed information, refer to this help article: https://adobe.ly/4caFp5M

    Also, please ensure you have the latest version of Acrobat installed, and check for any pending updates from the Menu > help > check for updates, install the updates, restart the app and the machine, and check. For more information, see this: https://adobe.ly/44adelt

     

    If you wish to raise a feature request, please use this URL and submit it to the product team.

     

    Thanks,

    Anand Sri.

     

    16 replies

    Show previous replies
    C
    capellae
    Participant
    September 8, 2015

    4 months passed, and it is still impossible to disable this shit. Why we hell I pay for the subscription if I cant off text recognition? Make it possible pls.

      C
      Charlie Y
      Known Participant
      September 9, 2015

      This issue is frustrating me too. Being pre-press oriented, I very rarely need OCR for anything. Most often, I am extracting or editing images from PDFs. This automatic OCR thing is just like a pop-up ad for me - something in the way of my work. In fact, the new interface of Acrobat DC seems much less conducive to work. In the previous version, I had all my frequently used tools handy. Not so much now.

        XZ315
        XZ315
        Participating Frequently
        September 29, 2015

        I want to echo Charlie's sentiment about the tools layout redesign being horrendous.  This is a case of taking something that wasn't broken and trying to fix it. 

          A
          ael93587601
          Participant
          September 4, 2015

          I would also like to see an option to disable the automatic convert to text.  Most times I just need to add a little text box and converting the page to text 1. is a waste of time and 2. often distorts my information thus resulting in converting almost every page back to an image.  The convert to text function works well, please just make an option to disable it when editing!

            W
            wfejessie
            Participant
            September 3, 2015

            Me too!!!!  I also need to revert back to XI because this is killing me.  I'm on subscription - how to I revert?

              patrickc_LF
              patrickc_LF
              Participant
              September 1, 2015

              I just wanted to pop in to say "me too". Actually I created an account all so that I could do that. I'm working with some older technical outline drawings that I can only get as tifs or jpgs. I need to put them together into single PDFs to add to product webpages. What I don't need is to have Acrobat run OCR on each page of a 30 page PDF. Literally one incorrect character conversion could get my company sued. Please add a way to turn this off. Why waste time writing code to "make it better" when all we want is the ability to turn it off?

              Until we have the option to turn it off I'll be uninstalling DC in favor of Acrobat XI.

                ........997
                ........997
                Participant
                August 28, 2015

                Clicking "Edit" does not mean I want to change the document text. In my case, often I type "Exhibit A" using the Typewriter feature, and add a Bates stamp. It is NOT acceptable that my scan, of a signed document, is changed other than the way I am changing it. Also, opening a scan of a medical record should not OCR my pages. Doctor handwriting can't be OCR'ed, all it does is make for huge, error filled files.

                There needs to be a overall, general preference to Auto-OCR or not. Your power-users are quite comfortable changing our own settings. This needs a fix, or I will not upgrade. Uninstalled the trial version as soon as I realized what DC does.

                  AnkitBal
                  Adobe Employee
                  AnkitBal
                  Adobe Employee
                  September 1, 2015

                  Hi,

                  As Varinder mentions above, we have looked into both improving the experience of PDF Editing in Acrobat DC and ensuring that OCR is not run on every scanned image during Edit, and working on solutions to resolve them.

                  Please stay tuned for a future update.

                  Regards,

                  -Ankit Bal

                    XZ315
                    XZ315
                    Participating Frequently
                    September 29, 2015

                    Running OCR every time someone wants to edit a PDF at all was probably the worst idea of the past decade and is completely ignorant of the way that Acrobat is used in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction/Real Estate industry.  The 2nd worst idea was not enabling flattening of PDFs and forcing me to go through and re-print the document to PDF again.  Oh, what's that you say, I should use the password protect option?  Please.  If you think flattening and password protecting are even remotely similar functions or are used for even remotely similar purposes, you have your head up your behind.  This is why we're all buying Bluebeam now. 

                      Varinder_Saini
                      Adobe Employee
                      Varinder_Saini
                      Adobe Employee
                      May 20, 2015

                      If there is no text in the pdf page, we convert the image to text. Yes you have to revert it back to image and any modifications done will be lost. Could you please explain what kind of changes you are trying to do to the pdf imported from other programs?  As of now there is no way to disable the Convert to Text option. We will definitely look into this and see how we can improve it.

                      Thanks

                      Varinder

                      E
                      Enlightened_worldview15A8Author
                      Participating Frequently
                      May 20, 2015

                      I work at a print shop and deal with PDFs that have a lot of type and images. Customers bring in PDFs that needs to be sent as a postscript but I need to edit their pictures because sometimes they're too dark, on the press it only gets darker. I have to go to every picture, sometimes there's 5, other times there's 20, and make each one lighter in Photoshop. I flatten (to outline text) the PDF first so no changes are made to how it was set up then I edit each picture. It has happened that when I click on Edit, it'll change the position of the text, which is irritating and time consuming. I don't mind working on each picture to lighten them, it's a quick edit in Photoshop but it becomes a pain when I take it back into the PDF with it converting the text each time.

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