How to OCR a PDF Document to add Searchable Text

From Existing Document

  1. Launch PDF Studio and open the PDF document that you wish to add searchable text to
  2. Go to Document ->OCR – Create Searchable PDF from the top menu
  3. From the Language drop down select the language you wish to use OCR Dialog
    1. Note: The first time using OCR you will need to download the language packs. To do so click on “Download OCR Languages“, then select the languages you wish to use and click on “Download” OCR Language Download
  4. Select the Page Range and Resolution that you
    1. Note: A resolution of 300 dpi produces good OCR results for most images. When dealing with scans containing noise, you may try using a lower dpi setting to get rid of the noise and obtain better OCR results.
  5. Click on “OK” to begin the OCR process
  6. You will see a progress dialog showing you the current page being processed. Once complete click on “OK” to close the dialog OCR Complete Dialog
  7. Your document is now ready to be searched, edited, or marked up with highlights, underlined, crossed-out or used with caret annotations.

When Scanning a Document

  1. Launch PDF Studio and start the scanning tool by either clicking on the Scanner icon on the toolbar or going to File->Create PDF->From Scanner
  2. In the scanning dialog you will see an option to OCR the document after scanning ScanningOCROption
  3. From the Language drop down select the language you wish to use OCR Dialog
    1. Note: The first time using OCR you will need to download the language packs. To do so click on “Download OCR Languages“, then select the languages you wish to use and click on “Download” OCR Language Download
  4. After setting all of your scanning and OCR settings click on “Scan” to begin scanning the document
  5. Once the scanning completes the OCR process will begin and you will see a progress dialog showing you the current page being processed. Once complete click on “OK” to close the dialog OCR Complete Dialog
  6. Your document is now ready to be searched, edited, or marked up with highlights, underlined, crossed-out or used with caret annotations.

Available OCR Languages

The following language dictionary files are available for download directly from within PDF Studio OCR functions.

English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.
Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish.

Using the appropriate language file will improve the accuracy of OCR results. See Tips on Improving OCR Results for additional information