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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.

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.

  1. Make PDF Searchable icon Click Make Searchable > Current File on the Advanced Processing tab of the ribbon.
  2. In the Make Searchable Settings dialog box adjust settings as you prefer.
    1. Select the Auto orient pages setting for documents with mixed page orientation.
    2. Select the PDF type. The type Searchable enables searching but provides no extra image compression or editing features.
    3. Under MRC Compression, adjust the slider to balance compact output file size against quality.
    4. Under Languages to recognize, select all languages in the document, or select Automatic language detection instead.
  3. Click OK to run the transformation.