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How to OCR a PDF on a Mac without Adobe Acrobat

Acrobat's text recognition comes with a subscription. The free and low cost ways to make a scanned PDF searchable on a Mac, compared plainly.

The problem

You have a scanned PDF you cannot search or copy from, and the only fix anyone mentions is an Acrobat subscription.

Is there free OCR for PDFs on a Mac?

Yes, two kinds, for two jobs.

How do I copy text from a scan for free?

Use Live Text: recent macOS reads text in scans as you select it. Good for a paragraph, but the file stays unsearchable. See copy text from a scanned PDF.

How do I make a whole PDF searchable for free?

OCRmyPDF, a free command line tool, adds a text layer to every page:

brew install ocrmypdf
ocrmypdf scan.pdf searchable.pdf

For other languages, install the language pack and pass it with -l, for example -l deu for German.

Does Preview do OCR?

Preview can often select text in a scan with Live Text, but it does not add a text layer to the saved file, so Spotlight and other apps still cannot search it.

Which should I use?

  • A quote from one page: Live Text.
  • A whole file, and you are happy in Terminal: OCRmyPDF.
  • A whole file, without Terminal: an app.

Our take

Add the text layer once, to the file, rather than copying from the scan each time. A searchable PDF works in Spotlight, in every app and for anyone you send it to; Live Text helps only you, only now, and only on this Mac.

In Simply PDF

Simply PDF's Make Searchable, with a key, adds the text layer with your Mac's own text recognition, shows how many pages became searchable, and never uploads the file. More: OCR a scanned PDF on a Mac.

Questions

Is there free OCR for PDFs on a Mac?

Yes. Live Text can copy text from scans, and OCRmyPDF adds a text layer to whole files for free.

Does Preview do OCR?

Preview can often select text in a scan with Live Text, but it does not add a text layer to the saved file.

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