How to Fix Acrobat OCR Not Recognizing Fraktur Fonts
Question details
The user needs to perform OCR on older PDF documents containing Fraktur fonts, but Acrobat DC fails to recognize the text.
- Product
- Adobe Acrobat DC
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Creating a searchable image from a scanned PDF document that uses historical Fraktur typefaces.
- Observed behavior
- Acrobat's OCR engine does not recognize the Fraktur text, and installing the original font on the system does not resolve the issue.
Ensure your scanned PDF is of high resolution, as poor image quality can prevent even specialized OCR software from recognizing complex historical fonts.
Use Specialized OCR Software for Historical Fonts
Since Acrobat lacks support for custom OCR fonts, using a dedicated OCR tool trained on historical typefaces is the most effective solution.
Adobe Acrobat DC uses a built-in OCR engine that relies on predefined language dictionaries. It does not reference system fonts, meaning installing the Fraktur font locally will not help. To process historical documents, you must use software specifically designed for this purpose.
Obtain an OCR program that supports historical fonts, such as ABBYY FineReader or Tesseract OCR with the Fraktur language pack.
Launch the specialized OCR software and open the scanned PDF containing the Fraktur text.
Navigate to the software's recognition settings and select 'Fraktur' or 'Old German' as the primary OCR language.
Start the text recognition process and export the result as a searchable PDF or text document.
Manage Your Standard PDFs and Documents with WPS Office
While historical fonts require specialized OCR engines, WPS Office is an excellent, free alternative for your everyday PDF editing, standard OCR, and document creation needs. It offers a lightweight, highly compatible suite for all standard office tasks.
- 1. Download WPS Office: Visit the official WPS website to download and install the free office suite.
- 2. Open your PDF: Launch WPS Office and open your standard PDF document.
- 3. Use PDF Tools: Access the 'Tools' tab to use features like OCR, PDF to Word conversion, and document editing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn't installing the Fraktur font fix the Acrobat OCR issue?
Acrobat's OCR engine uses its own internal language dictionaries and does not read or utilize the fonts installed on your computer's operating system.
Can I add a custom dictionary to Adobe Acrobat DC?
No, Adobe Acrobat DC does not offer a feature or setting to import custom fonts or historical language dictionaries for its OCR engine.
What OCR software can recognize Fraktur fonts?
Specialized OCR tools like ABBYY FineReader and the open-source Tesseract engine (when using the Fraktur data pack) are capable of recognizing historical typefaces.
