Does Adobe Acrobat Pro Have OCR for iPhone and iPad?
Question details
The user wants to know if Adobe Acrobat Pro offers an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature for extracting text on iPhones or iPads running iOS 15.
- Product
- Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Device & OS
- iOS 15
- Scenario
- Attempting to extract and recognize text from scanned documents or images on a mobile Apple device.
- Observed behavior
- Adobe Acrobat Pro is not available as a standalone app for iOS, so users cannot use it directly for OCR on their iPhones or iPads.
Ensure your iPhone or iPad is updated to the latest iOS version and connected to the internet so you can easily download alternative document scanning applications.
Use the Adobe Scan App for OCR on iOS
Since Adobe Acrobat Pro is not available for iOS devices, you can use the free Adobe Scan app to recognize text on your iPhone or iPad.
Adobe Acrobat Pro is primarily a desktop application. While Adobe offers Acrobat Reader for mobile, the specific text-recognition capabilities associated with Acrobat Pro are handled by a dedicated mobile scanning app. To perform OCR on an iPhone or iPad, you will need to install Adobe Scan.
Open the App Store on your iPhone or iPad, search for 'Adobe Scan', and download the application.
Launch the app and sign in with your Adobe ID. Tap the camera icon to scan a physical document or import an existing image from your photo library.
Tap 'Save PDF' in the upper right corner. Adobe Scan will automatically upload the file to the Adobe Document Cloud and run OCR on the document in the background.
Once processed, open the scanned PDF within the app. You can now tap, hold, and highlight the recognized text to copy it to your clipboard.
Extract Text from PDFs Easily with WPS Office for iOS
Skip juggling multiple apps. WPS Office for iOS features a powerful built-in OCR tool that instantly recognizes and extracts text from images and scanned PDFs right on your iPhone or iPad, eliminating the need for separate scanning software.
- 1. Install WPS Office: Download WPS Office for free from the App Store on your iPhone or iPad.
- 2. Open your file: Launch the app and open your scanned PDF or import an image from your gallery.
- 3. Access the OCR tool: Tap the 'Tools' menu at the bottom of the screen and select 'OCR' or 'Picture to Text' to begin the extraction process.
- 4. Extract and save: Review the recognized text on your screen, then copy it to your clipboard or directly export it as a new editable Word document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I edit PDF text on my iPad using Adobe Acrobat Reader?
Yes, but editing existing text in the mobile Adobe Acrobat Reader app requires a paid premium subscription. Free users are limited to viewing, commenting, and highlighting PDFs.
How do I make a PDF searchable on my iPhone?
You can use an OCR-enabled scanner app like Adobe Scan or WPS Office. When you scan a document and save it as a PDF using these apps, the software processes the image and turns the visual text into searchable, selectable data.
Is OCR free natively on iOS 15?
Yes, Apple introduced a feature called 'Live Text' in iOS 15 that allows you to copy text directly from photos in your camera roll. However, for multi-page PDFs or batch document processing, using a dedicated PDF app with OCR like WPS Office is much more efficient.
