How to Create Searchable PDFs on Mac OS X

Have you scanned in your paper files into digital versions, but are disappointed that the resulting PDF files are not searchable?  Don't worry, there is an easy solution: OCR (optical character recognition).  PDF OCR X, is an application for Mac OS X that can perform the OCR conversion.

Steps:

1. Download PDF OCR X.  (The Community Edition is free, and will work with single-page PDFs).
2. Open the DMG file, and copy the PDF OCR X icon into your Applications folder. 

   

   The DMG file you get from downloading PDF OCR X contains the PDF OCR X application.  You should copy this into your Applications directory.

3. Open PDF OCR X (by double-clicking the PDF OCR X icon).  This will display a little window where you can drag your PDF files to be converted.
   
   
   
4. Drag your scanned PDF file onto the PDF OCR X window.
5. In the OCR dialog box, select the language of the document, and select "Output Mode" to be "Searchable PDF".  (If you selected "Text output" it would extract the text of the PDF as plain text).
   
   
   
    Then click the "Convert" button.
6. Wait a minute while PDF OCR X runs the conversion.  When it is complete, it will open your PDF in Preview.
7. Test it out.  Try searching for some text in the PDF (using Preview).
   
   
   

Video Tutorial