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Make PDF files searchable

If you have text in image-only PDF files or make PDF files from image files containing text, you will not be able to search these documents based on their content. To make these files searchable, OCR should be used to extract their text. A searchable PDF document presents page images, but also contains the recognized text in a separate layer, with each text character referenced to its image counterpart. This allows the PDF to be searched. Searchable PDF is especially useful to access content in documents that must be archived with their precise original appearance.

Note When Searchable PDF is selected, it runs the OCR process only when no accessible text layer is detected in an input file. When a text layer is found, this is used to make a normal PDF that is searchable without the need to run OCR. This happens even if Searchable PDF is disabled.

Use Create Assistant to turn image-only PDF files or various types of image files into searchable PDF documents.

Note See the list of supported file types in Create Assistant.

You can set the OCR language in the Searchable PDF Conversion Settings dialog box.

Create Assistant provides a separate profile named Searchable PDF, but you can also create Searchable PDF using other profiles by turning on the checkbox Searchable PDF.

Use the Searchable PDF profile in Create Assistant

  1. In the Create Assistant Profile selection box, select Searchable PDF.
  2. Open one or more files you want transformed to Searchable PDF.
  3. Click Profiles and check the settings in the PDF Create Profiles dialog box. The Searchable PDF check box is selected by default. Keep this setting and change other settings (such as security, or watermark) if required.
  4. Click Settings button to display the Searchable PDF Conversion Settings dialog box.
    1. Select the language of your source document in the OCR Language list.
    2. Change other setting as required, then click OK to close the dialog box.
  5. Click OK to close the PDF Create Profiles dialog box.
  6. Start PDF Creation icon Click the Start Creation tool.

    Saving is performed according to the current destination settings. The resulting PDF files are saved either in the source folder, or in a predefined folder, or the Save As dialog box appears.

    An information dialog box displays status info on the creation process and a list of the resulting PDF files with file name, path, file type and date of creation.

  7. The Create PDF Info dialog box displays status info on the creation process and a list of the resulting PDF files with file name, path, file type and date of creation. Click Close to return to the Create PDF window, and then close it. Click Close to return to the Create PDF window, then close it.

Create searchable PDF using other profiles in Create Assistant

  1. In the Create Assistant Profile list, select a profile and load files.
  2. Click Profiles.
  3. In the PDF Create Profiles dialog box, select the Searchable check box.

    Tip To get a Searchable PDF with MRC compression, turn on both check boxes. In this case if you click the Settings button, the Searchable MRC PDF Conversion Settings dialog box will appear.

  4. Click the Settings button to display the Searchable PDF Conversion Settings dialog box. Select the language of your source document, then click OK.
  5. In the PDF Create Profiles dialog box check and change other settings (such as security, or watermark) if required.
  6. Click OK to close the PDF Create Profiles dialog box.
  7. Start PDF Creation icon Click the Start Creation tool.

    Saving is performed according to the current destination settings. The resulting PDF files are saved either in the source folder, or in a predefined folder, or the Save As dialog box appears.

  8. An information dialog box displays status info on the creation process and a list of the resulting PDF files with file name, path, file type and date of creation. Click Close to return to the Create PDF window, then close it.

Turn a PDF with image-only parts to searchable in Power PDF

To transform an image-only PDF or a PDF with image-only parts into a searchable PDF in Power PDF, proceed with the following steps.

Note You can influence this transformation under File > Options > Document > Searchable PDF documents.

  1. Make PDF Searchable icon Select Make PDF Searchable at Home > Convert.
  2. In the Convert Pages dialog box select whether to have OCR (Optical Character Recognition) run only on pages with image-only parts or on all pages – in this case any text layer content previously in the PDF is replaced by the OCR results.
  3. Click Settings to display the Searchable PDF Conversion Settings dialog box. Update the most important settings as required, then click OK to save changes and return.

    Note For more details on settings, see About Editing PDF Documents.

    1. Select the language of your source document in the OCR Language list.
    2. Select Process documents using OCR to run OCR if a text layer is present but unusable due to non-standard encoding.
    3. Select Automatically proofread results after OCR to proofread generated text to raise its accuracy from the OCR process.
  4. Click OK to run the transformation.