OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. This is a type of software or tool that can determine non-editable text from an image or PDF file, extract the text and convert it into a machine-readable format.
It’s used across a variety of industries and settings. Thanks to its text recognition technology, you can turn static images or scanned documents into fully functioning text that you can search, copy, highlight and even edit.
Adobe’s free online OCR software can help you find, copy and edit PDF text in a flash. Here’s how to do it.
Make manual data entry a thing of the past. With optical character recognition (OCR), Acrobat works as a text converter, automatically extracting text from any scanned paper document or image file and converting it to editable text in a PDF.
OCR lets Adobe Acrobat use text recognition to search for words or key phrases in your documents, saving you time and effort. Optical character recognition also allows you to use screen readers, greatly increasing accessibility.
Rest easy knowing Acrobat can recognise text and its formatting to retain the exact look and feel of your documents. Your new PDF will match your original printout thanks to automatic customised font generation.
You can access our suite of Adobe Acrobat tools on a variety of browsers. That means no downloads or installs are needed to use our OCR software. You can even work with your new PDF in Office applications. Simply cut and paste or export it to a Microsoft Word (DOCX) document, PowerPoint file (PPT), Excel spreadsheet (XLS) or a plain text document (TXT).
As creators of the PDF format, you can trust Adobe to keep your files safe and in line with GDPR. We use encryption to protect your data, and delete any uploaded OCR text files if you're not signed in.
We've been innovating the PDF format since its inception, which means you can trust the quality of our OCR tools.
OCR can convert any static PDF image into scannable text. To check if it's worked, simply try searching for a phrase in the document. Try our Adobe Acrobat Pro seven-day free trial to use Adobe OCR technology on other image file types, including JPG, TIFF, and PNG files.
Our Acrobat Pro free trial also lets you access other PDF editing features, too. Edit your PDF, increase security with PDF passwords, collect signatures, and convert file types to and from PDF, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.
OCR can convert any static PDF image into scannable text. To check if it's worked, simply try searching for a phrase in the document. Try our Adobe Acrobat Pro seven-day free trial to use Adobe OCR technology on other image file types, including JPG, TIFF, and PNG files.
Our Acrobat Pro free trial also lets you access other PDF editing features, too. Edit your PDF, increase security with PDF passwords, collect signatures, and convert file types to and from PDF, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.
Yes, you can recognise text in files that aren’t PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro. With a 7-day free trial, you can use OCR on image formats like PNG, JPG, and TIFF.
The trial also unlocks advanced PDF features, including editing and converting to/from PDF, TXT, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Optical character recognition has several important benefits, including:
However, OCR PDF text recognition can sometimes struggle to identify more complex text and characters. So, while OCR is an excellent tool, it isn’t always a failsafe one.
ICR, or Intelligent Character Recognition, is a form of OCR. Crucially, though, it’s able to read different languages, fonts, sizes and styles – including hand-written notes. While it’s similar to OCR, it uses more advanced algorithms and is generally more intelligent.
Read more about the differences between OCR and ICR.
