Scans and images
How to copy text from a scanned PDF
When you try to select text in a scan, you get the whole page as a picture. OCR reads the words and adds them as an invisible layer, so selecting, copying and searching work while the page looks exactly the same.
Step by step
- 1Open OCR PDF and drop in the scan.
- 2Press Make searchable.
- 3Open the result and select text as usual.
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Open OCR PDFTips
- ✓Straight, well lit scans at 200 DPI or higher give the best results.
- ✓Check copied numbers carefully; OCR can confuse similar characters like 0 and O.
Questions people ask
+Does OCR change how the scan looks?
No. The text layer is invisible and the scan is kept as it was.
+Which languages work?
English today.
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