How to get the text out of a scanned PDF on Android

First, check if your PDF already has text

Open the PDF in any viewer and press and hold on a word. If you can select it, the PDF already has text, and you can copy it straight away. You don’t need OCR.

If nothing gets selected, or the whole page gets selected like an image, the PDF is a scan. Read on.

Import the PDF

1. Open abc OCR.
2. On the home screen, tap the PDF button next to the camera and gallery buttons.
3. Pick the PDF from your phone, Google Drive or any other files app.

The app opens each page as an image and reads it. A scan can hold up to 20 pages. If your PDF is longer, only the first 20 pages are read.

Check the text

Use the previous and next buttons to go through the pages (“Page 1 of 5”) and check the text. Tap the pencil to fix a word.

If a page has a table, the app shows it as a grid. Switch between Table and Text to see it either way. Empty cells stay empty.

If a page has no text, for example a blank back side, the app skips it.

Copy or save the text

• Copy puts all the text on your clipboard. Paste it into an email, a note or a document.
• Save as… writes a file. TXT, CSV and Markdown are free. Word (DOCX), Excel (XLSX) and PDF are Premium, and the free plan includes 3 of these saves a week.

Save to your phone, to Google Drive, or to any folder.

Tips for better results

• Sharper scans read better. If you scanned the paper yourself, 300 dpi is enough.
• Straight pages read better. If a page is tilted, open it and drag the 4 corners to straighten it.
• Pages in many languages: Latin-alphabet languages work right away. For Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Hindi, download the language once in Settings › Offline languages.