Searchable Pdfs
The only searchable pdfs are those that are created through an OCR process which ‘captures’ a text layer separately from an image layer.
A purely scanned image is like a photograph – and cannot be searchable – as it is just an image layer without a text layer.
Image-only” or Scanned PDFs
When scanning hard copy documents or screenshots into a PDF, the content is “locked” in a snapshot-like image. An “image-only” PDF can be made searchable by applying OCR with which a text layer is added, normally under the page image.
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