Definition of a Searchable PDF

In 1990, Adobe introduced the portable document format (PDF) to help people share documents created in different applications and operating systems. PDFs are "searchable" when you can automatically find particular words or data within the document.

PDF Normal

Many text processing applications, including InDesign, MS Word and OpenOffice Writer, allow you to convert a document to a PDF. These PDFs contain the text and formatting of the original document and are therefore searchable.

Image Only

When you scan a document, the scanner creates a graphic image. The image can be converted to a PDF file, but the result is only a picture of the content. An image-only PDF is not searchable.

Searchable Image PDF

You can make an image-only PDF searchable by using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process. OCR software, often included with your scanner (or see Resources), translates your image of the text into text that can be searched.

Cautions

OCR-converted text is only 95 to 99 percent accurate. The OCR process creates much larger files than other formats because it retains both the original image and the converted text.

Use of PDFs

PDFs are widely used for information distribution, and the International Organization for Standardization has adopted it as the standard for document archives.

References

• Adobe: Portable Document Format
• Data Conversion Laboratory Inc.

Resources

• MakeUseOf.com