Suppose you have a PDF document that was made using a scanner, or otherwise consists of image data but doesn't have text data. Such a PDF can't be searched by PDF readers or desktop search applications. PDF OCR is a simple tool that takes a PDF file, then generates a new one that has the text layer added, so it's searchable by your PDF reader and can be indexed by your desktop search application, but is still identical when printed.

Advanced PDF Utilities Free can converts Scanned PDF to text, then you can edit or use the PDF content. It uses advanced OCR (optical character recognition) technology to extract the text of the PDF even if that text is contained in an image. This is particularly useful for dealing with PDFs that were created via a Scan-to-PDF function in a scanner or photo copier.

PDF OCR has a build-in text editor which allows you to edit OCR result text without MS Word. It also has a scanned image to PDF converter, which means you can create your own scanned PDF books.

This is only of use if your PDF was made from a scanned source; if you exported your PDF and it already has a text layer so this is unnecessary. If what you're looking for is to simply extract the plain text from a PDF file, you should use the PDF to TXT converter of Advanced PDF Utilities Free.

Given the proliferation of scan-to-PDF technology available today, our OCR solutions focus only on the conversion of already created scanned PDF documents. The quality of the OCR conversion process will largely depend on the quality of the scanned image and the clarity of the characters of that image.

What benefits can I expect?

Advanced PDF Utilities Free is designed for easy PDF processing. All functions are learnable and usable for both casual users and professionals.

• Open and preview any kinds of PDF files
• Convert images like JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc. to PDF
• Convert a bulk of images to PDF
• Convert PDF to TXT or Word document
• Split one PDF into separate PDF files
• Merge multiple PDF files into one
• Scan paper documents to PDF
• Use PDF OCR to extract text from image PDF
• Remove PDF restrictions including password
• Print out the PDF

Minimum:

• Intel Pentium 3 500MHz or equivalent processor
• At least 256 MB RAM
• 200 MB free hard disk space
• Graphics mode 800x600, 16-bit color
• Internet Explorer 6
• Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8