Use PDF Expert OCR: Your Essential Tool for Scanned Documents

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a feature in PDF editors that allows users to easily open and edit scanned or image-rich PDF documents. To be fully functional and useful, the OCR function on any PDF editor that you choose must be easily accessible and easy to use.

PDF Expert is one of the many PDF editors in the market and you may want to use it to edit your scanned PDF. Here, we will examine if PDF Expert has an OCR function and how you can use it to edit your document.

Before the demonstration of how to use OCR in PDF Expert, we would recommend a better choice applying OCR function - UPDF. You could download for a trial!

Part 1: A Better Alternative to PDF Expert OCR on Mac

Although PDF Expert's OCR technology can be useful, it may not always be able to detect the text on the scanned document, which can be a problem if the scanned document is blurry. If you want an OCR system that is easy to use and highly useful, you should consider using UPDF instead. You can download it for a trial.

UPDF has invested in all the necessary technology to make sure that you will find everything you need in an OCR. The following are just some of the things that you can do with UPDF;

• It has a very powerful OCR technology that will detect all the text on your scanned PDF.
• You also get the benefit of one of the best PDF text editors in the business to make the changes you need to the PDF.
• UPDF also has a built-in PDF image editor to help you make changes to any of the images on the document in various ways including deleting, moving, rotating, resizing, and even cropping the images.
• It is also one of the best ways to read and annotate a PDF document. The annotator allows you to add highlights, text boxes, comments, and other elements to the PDF directly.  

Part 2: How to Use UPDF OCR Feature

While you use the PDF Expert OCR function, UPDF provides a lucrative experience of OCR functionality on its platform. While it detects the languages and offers users a coherent conversion of the PDF file, the content in the document will be converted to searchable and editable data even the scanned document is blurry. To understand how it is done, look into the detailed steps of using the OCR tool offered by UPDF:

Step 1: Access the OCR Tool

Open the scanned PDF document in UPDF and direct yourselves to the "Recognize Text using OCR" feature on the right panel.

Step 2: Define Document Type for OCR

With the menu that opens against it, select "Searchable PDF" as the Document Type and navigate to the next settings for defining the parameters for the OCR function.

Step 3: Provide Layout Properties

You will find the "Layout" option at the start, and you can select it. For defining the advanced layout options, select the "Gear" icon and checkmark the options that you wish to set up for the OCR tool.

Step 4: Set Language and Resolution Parameters

In the "Document Language," select any of the 38 languages that you can find in the drop-down menu.

After selecting the language, you can proceed to the "Image Resolution" section, where you can set up a value according to the available options in the menu. Otherwise, you can tap on the "Detect Optimal Resolution" button to automatically detect the required image resolution.

Step 5: Perform OCR and Save Document

Set up the page range on which the OCR function is to be applied. Once it is done, click on the "Perform OCR" button and navigate to the location where you want to save the editable PDF document.

You can download UPDF to try these steps by clicking the download button below.

Part 3: How to Use PDF Expert OCR

PDF Expert for Mac is a useful solution to edit scanned PDFs. Its OCR function is readily accessible. You can use the following simple steps to PDF Expert's OCR;

Step 1: Start by downloading and installing the PDF Expert application on your Mac. Once installation is complete, open PDF Expert.

Step 2: Open the scanned PDF document that you want to edit. You can simply drag and drop the file to the program's main window to open it.

Step 3: Once the file is open, click on the “Scan & OCR” button at the top

Step 4: Then click on the “Recognize Text” option

Step 5: You may see a popup message saying, “There is no selectable text on this page.” Click “Recognize” when it appears and then select the language in the sidebar. Click “Recognize” again.

Step 6: On the popup window that appears, choose the “Language” of the PDF, select the pages or range of pages you want to recognize, and click “Apply.”

Step 7: Once you have made all the selections, PDF Expert OCR will immediately begin scanning and it should recognize all the text on the PDF.

If there are any words on the document that the OCR technology cannot detect or recognize, PDF Expert will make the best guess and allow you to correct any wrong entries.

Step 8: Once the process is complete, you will be able to select and copy the text on the document and make any edits as desired.

Pros and Cons of PDF Expert OCR

Pros

• The OCR feature is very easy to use
• It is fast and secure
• It supports numerous languages
• The OCR can recognize most of the text
• You can edit any text that the OCR technology is unable to detect or that it fails to recognize

Cons

• It is only available for Mac
• OCR technology may fail to detect all the text on the document

Comparing UPDF and PDF Expert

UPDF and PDF Expert are two renowned PDF editors in the market. They, however, vary in their features and functionalities, which makes one better than the other. We have outlined a comparison between the two PDF editors that will help you out in assessing the conditions that make one better than the other.

If you want to learn more about the comparison of UPDF and PDF Expert, there's a detailed article of PDF Expert vs UPDF, which one is better?

Part 4: FAQs on PDF Expert OCR

Does PDF Expert Have OCR?

Yes, PDF Expert for Mac has an OCR function that is accessible and can be used to recognize and detect the text on a scanned PDF document. However, PDF Expert needs 8 steps to turn PDF files into editable files, the best choice is UPDF in all.

How Do I Enable OCR in PDF Expert on Mac?

Open the PDF file in PDF Expert and then click on the "Scan & OCR" button at the top. This will open the OCR features allowing you to customize the process including choosing the number of pages that you want the OCR to scan.

Conclusion

OCR can be a very useful way to edit scanned PDF documents. But to ensure that you are working with all the content on the document, it is important to choose a PDF editor whose OCR function will recognize and detect all the text on the document. UPDF is both accurate and easy to use, allowing you to quickly and very easily convert scanned PDFs to editable formats.