How to Edit Scanned PDF in Adobe Acrobat

Generally speaking, the text on a scanned PDF is not selectable. To edit a scanned PDF, you have to make sure the PDF text is selectable. To make the PDF text editable, the first thing to do is performing the OCR feature to recognize the text. In this article I will teach you how to edit scanned PDF in Adobe Acrobat as well as another great way to accomplish the task.

Part 1Adobe Acrobat vs Best Adobe Alternative

Items
PDF OCR	OCR feature can make scaned PDF, read-only PDF and image-based PDF editable and searchable.	No OCR in Adobe Acrobat Standard DC.
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Part 2Steps for Editing Scanned PDF Files with and without Adobe Acrobat

: Both Acrobat 9 and Acrobat X have the built-in OCR feature.

1. If you are using Adobe Acrobat 9, select Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR.

2. In Acrobat X Pro, Choose Tools > Recognize Text > In This File.

3. After finishing the OCR process, the scanned PDF file turns into editable and searchable. Then you can use the editing tools to make changes to your PDF files, as editing the text and image, add annotation to PDF files and more.

Step 1. Import Your PDF into PDFelement
Launch PDFelement on your computer and then click the "Open" button to import the scanned PDF you're going to convert.

Step 2. Make Your Scanned PDF Editable
PDFelement will automatically detect your scanned PDF and remind you of performing OCR. Click the "Perform OCR" button on the top information bar. On the pop-up, select the right language for the PDF image. After performing OCR, your file is ready to be edited.

Step 3. Edit Your PDF after OCR

To modify or insert PDF text, click "Edit Text" under the "Edit" tab and then move your mouse to the PDF where you want to edit the text. Double click the text block. When the cursor appears, enter the right text.
To edit or insert images, in the "Edit" tab, click the "Add Image" button to add an existing image to your PDF or click the "Edit Objects" button to adjust the image on your document.
To annotate PDF, navigate to the "Comment" tab and you can see that PDFelement provides a range of annotation tools for you to annotate the PDF content. Users are able to add sticky note, text box, highlight, underline, strikethrough PDF text, and markup PDF with all kind of shapes.
To manage PDF pages, go to the "Pages" menu, click the corresponding tool to delete pages, extract page, rotate pages, crop pages, etc.