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

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
May 19, 2015
16 replies
62717 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.

Show previous replies

C

capellae

Participant

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

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

Participating Frequently

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

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

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

Participant

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

Participant

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

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

Participating Frequently

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

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

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-Jaydude-

Known Participant

An example: in my case, I try to assemble an onscreen version .pdf from multiple print-ready .pdf's. So e.g. I have to crop the file that's used to print the cover (remove the back). But Acrobat is taking a lot of time to make the book's title editable. I do not need that. This behaviour makes it unusable. I would prefer a dialog to decide what Acrobat must do.

........997

Participant

From post 21 by https://forums.adobe.com/people/Priyanja Hi everyone, Thanks for your patience. We understand that this is an annoying behaviour and therefore 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.

Michael and Adobe,

The fact that this thread is still going years later, and the sidebar full of similar topics to turn this feature off, makes me think that it is a feature that needs to be OFF by default. Those who want it can turn it back on. Still not upgrading.

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