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What is a searchable grayscale PDF?

Paul Surovell
Registered: Aug 28 2011
Posts: 2

My scanner allows me to create a "searchable grayscale PDF" file.
 
How do these files interface with Acrobat 10? Are these files easier for people with Acrobat Reader to search than regular PDFs?
 
Thanks.

Paul Surovell

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 10.0, Windows
Paul Surovell
Registered: Aug 28 2011
Posts: 2
I should amend my question to ask:

How do these files interface with Acrobat 10 Pro?

Thanks.

Paul Surovell

try67
Expert
Registered: Oct 30 2008
Posts: 2398
It probably means that the scan is OCRed after the scan is complete.
If OCR is not performed, it's not possible to search the file at all, in Acrobat or in Reader.

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gkaiseril
Expert
Registered: Feb 23 2006
Posts: 4307
PDF file format can hold many types of objects, text, pictures, multimedia, form fields, etc. Acrobat/Reader search searches for text data, so the form needs text. For pictures and multi media this may mean the object needs to have text tags associated with the object.

A picture of a page of text is still just a picture in PDF. OCR maybe able to convert the picture image of the text to actual text and that text maybe on a hidden layer and line the text with the text image in the picture.

George Kaiser