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Create a PDF text file

jer1iz
Registered: Jan 14 2009
Posts: 16

From time to time our organization emails/provides a PDF manuscript for my work. I can open the file in Foxit and edit it. When I scan other outlines sent to me I can do nothing with them in Foxit. Some one commented that the ones I can't work with are really image files and not text files. The extension is still PDF however. How can that be?

Can someone help me with scanning the outline in such a way in Acrobat pro (9) that I can end up with a text PDF and have ability to work with it in Foxit?

I would be deeply appreciative

Jerry (male half of jerliz)

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.0, Windows
try67
Expert
Registered: Oct 30 2008
Posts: 2398
A PDF file can contain both text and images. When a file is created through a scanner it contains only the latter, even if it looks like text. It's just an image of the scanned page.
To convert a scanned image to "real" text you need to use what is known as OCR: Optical Character Recognition.
Acrobat Pro has this functionality. You can download the trial version for free and check it out for yourself. Be aware, though, that the success rate of this technology greatly depends on the quality of the image.

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