How to edit a scanned PDF
Updated
A scanned PDF is a photograph of paper. Before you can change a word, the text has to be recognised — that is OCR, optical character recognition. pdf-m8 does it on your device, and can either keep the scan exactly as it looks or rebuild it as real, editable text.
Make a scan editable
- Open OCR PDF and choose the scanned file.
- Choose Editable PDF, and the document’s language.
- Leave “Straighten and turn pages first” on — crooked or sideways scans read much better.
- Press Recognise text. Each page is rebuilt as real text in a matching font, with logos and signatures kept.
- Open the result in the PDF editor to change anything you like.
Searchable or editable?
Searchable PDF keeps every page exactly as scanned and adds an invisible layer of text, so you can search, select and copy. Editable PDF replaces the scanned lettering with real text on clean white paper — best when the words themselves need to change.
To change one page only, open the scan in the editor, choose Edit text and press Recognise text on this page.
Getting the best results
- Scan at 200–300 dpi; phone photos work if the page is flat and well lit.
- Pick the right language — accents and special letters depend on it.
- The result reports pages that were hard to read, so you know what to proofread.