4 Ways to Make a PDF Searchable: Everything You Need to Know

This article was reviewed by Stan Kats and by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA. Stan Kats is the COO and Chief Technologist for The STG IT Consulting Group in West Hollywood, California. Stan provides comprehensive technology & cybersecurity solutions to businesses through managed IT services, and for individuals through his consumer service business, Stan's Tech Garage. Stan has over 7 years of cybersecurity experience, holding senior positions in information security at General Motors, AIG, and Aramark over his career. Stan received a BA in International Relations from The University of Southern California.

This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.

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You can tell if a PDF is searchable by highlighting and copying all the text in the PDF and pasting it somewhere else; if you pasted the text from the PDF, it's searchable, and you don't have to do anything. However, if the paste is empty or gibberish, you'll need to do more work for it to be searchable. This wikiHow article makes it easy for you to make a PDF searchable.

Things You Should Know

Use Adobe to convert your PDF to Word, then back to PDF to make your file searchable.
If you subscribe to Adobe Acrobat Pro, use the "Recognize Text" tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on your computer.
On mobile, upload a screenshot of your PDF in Adobe Scan to get a searchable PDF.

Method 1 of 4:

Converting with Adobe PDF to Word

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Go to Adobe's conversion tool. To make your PDF searchable, you can use this tool to ensure every word is recognized in Word.

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Upload your PDF. Click to browse your files, then use File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) to upload your file.

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Download the converted Word file. Once the free online converter is done, download your Word document.

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Converting your PDF to Word allows words to be recognized and searchable. Converting from Word back to PDF does not change that. You can easily convert your PDF using tools other than Adobe.
Press Ctrl + F (Windows) or Cmd + F (Mac) to search your PDF.

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Using Adobe Acrobat's Recognize Text Function

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Note that you must have an Adobe ID to access Adobe's OCR feature for editing PDFs, which requires you to sign up for a paid Adobe account. Go to https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/free-trial-download.html to download the software and get a free week trial.

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Clicking it will reveal a menu at the top of the window identified by another green tab.

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\n"> Click Recognize Text . It's centered in the new menu and will prompt another window to drop down.

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Select In This File . Clicking this will ensure the OCR program only converts text in the specific PDF you have opened.

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\n"> Click OK . This will start the character recognition process. Advertisement Method 3 of 4:

Using Adobe Scan on iPhone, iPad, & Android

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Take a screenshot of the PDF you want to make searchable. Open your PDF using My Files or the file manager for your mobile device. For example, iPhone and iPad will keep PDFs in the Books app. [1] X Research source

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Tap the check mark to continue.

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Now anyone can search the PDF in any software.

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Using Online Tools

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Many sites offer to do this for you, like iLovPDF.com and OCR2Edit.com.

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Note that many free sites have a smaller file size limit unless you pay to unlock bigger files.

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Select your PDF. Once in the file selection window (Finder for Mac and File Explorer for Windows), navigate to the file you want to edit and click Open.

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Select the language your file is using. Make sure you have the right language selected or you might not get the best results.

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Click Start . This will start the process of recognizing the text in your PDF and usually takes a few seconds.

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You can also convert images to editable text.

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