How to Select and Read Thai Text in Acrobat Pro DC on Mac
Question details
The user is unable to select or read Thai text in a PDF document using Acrobat Pro DC, and attempting to install a downloaded language pack results in an error stating the application is not installed.
- Product
- Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2018
- Device & OS
- MacBook
- Scenario
- Trying to highlight, select, or apply OCR to Thai text within a scanned or flattened PDF document.
- Observed behavior
- Text selection fails entirely. Installing an external language pack triggers an error message claiming Acrobat is not installed, preventing the addition of Thai OCR support.
Verify that your PDF document is not protected by security permissions that restrict text copying and content extraction.
Verify Thai Language Availability in OCR Settings
Check Acrobat's built-in text recognition settings to see if Thai is supported by your current installation.
If a PDF is essentially a scanned image, Acrobat needs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to make the text selectable. If Thai is not natively listed in the OCR languages, the software cannot process and recognize Thai characters.
Launch Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and open your PDF document. Go to the right-hand pane or the 'Tools' menu and select 'Scan & OCR' (or 'Enhance Scans' in older versions).
Click on 'Recognize Text' in the top toolbar and choose 'In This File' from the dropdown menu.
Click the 'Settings' button (gear icon) in the Recognize Text toolbar. Open the 'Document Language' dropdown list and scroll to see if 'Thai' is available.
If Thai is available, select it and click 'OK', then click 'Recognize Text'. If it is not listed, your version of Acrobat Pro DC cannot perform Thai character recognition without an official application update.
Resolve Language Pack Installation Error
Understand why the downloaded language pack fails with an 'Acrobat is not installed' error and how to address it.
Use WPS Office to Extract Text from Scanned PDFs
If your current PDF software lacks support for certain languages or struggles with OCR add-ons, WPS Office offers a comprehensive PDF editor with built-in, highly accurate OCR capabilities. It easily converts scanned documents into editable text without the need to hunt for external language packs.
- 1. Open Your PDF in WPS: Launch WPS Office and open your scanned or unselectable PDF document in the WPS PDF workspace.
- 2. Access the OCR Tool: Navigate to the 'Tools' tab on the top ribbon and click the 'OCR' button.
- 3. Select Text Extraction: Choose whether to extract text to a new document or make the current PDF editable.
- 4. Process the Document: Select the appropriate document language in the OCR settings pane and click 'Extract' to instantly convert the unselectable content into editable, selectable text.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my language pack installer say Acrobat is not installed?
This happens when you attempt to install a language pack or font pack intended for Adobe Acrobat Reader on a computer that only has Adobe Acrobat Pro DC installed. The installer specifically looks for the Reader directory and fails when it cannot find it.
How do I know if my PDF requires OCR?
If you try to click and drag your cursor over text in a PDF and the entire page turns blue (or you cannot select individual letters or words), the document is a flattened image. It requires Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert those image pixels into recognizable text data.
Can I copy Thai text directly if OCR is not available?
If OCR is not available and the document is an image-based PDF, you cannot copy the text directly. You would need to use an alternative PDF tool with built-in OCR features, or an online text extractor to convert the image to text first.
