Searchable text

[Althea Day]

I'm working on a document and am being told by my supervisor that I have to make some of the text searchable.  How do I do that?

[gkaiseril]

Is the PDF a scan of pages of text?

If so, then one needs to OCR the PDF.

[Althea Day]

No, it wasn't scanned.  I created a diagram online (a mind map) and then imported it as a PDF to Acrobat.  It enables me to create URL links but I cannot see how to make the topics searchable yet.

[Althea Day]

What's OCR?  Help doesn't say anything about it.

[gkaiseril · Accepted solution]

OCR stands for Optical Character Reader. This feature converts images of text into editable text. There are many stand alone and MFC, Multi Function Components,  that can convert a paper document, book, magazine, etc into a PDF. One can even use a digital camera to take an image of a paper page that and an OCR program can convert the text in the image to editable text.  In Acrobat DC it is found under Tools => Enhance Scans.