Converting JPEG or Image Files to Accessible PDFs – Introducing Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Why use OCR? If you have a document that is comprised of scanned pages from either a book or a
journal article that you’ve used to create a PDF, you may need to remediate the resulting file to make it
edtiable, searchable, and / or readable to individuals who will acess your file in a variety of ways. While
the previously mentioned document features improve accessibility and navigabilty for all users, they are
particlularly helpful to those who are visually impaired and are therefore using a screen reading device
to assist them in accessing the content of your file. This task of converting your scanned image-file to a
readable text can be completed in Adobe Acrobat using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools sets.
1. To begin the process of creating an accessible PDF, open the file in Adobe Acrobat. Any recent
version of Acrobat will work for this process.
2. To determine whether or not your PDF is an image file, do the following: from the View tab’s
drop down menu, select Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud.
3. Now return to the View tab once again, and from the drop-down menu, select Read This Page
Only. If the Read Aloud feature announces the following statement: Warning, empty page,” then
the file is an image file and not a text file.
4. To begin the process of converting the document, open the toolbox panel to the right of your
main document pane using the fly out panel button.
5. With this side panel, you are provided a list of tools. Select Action Wizard from the list of tools
there. If you do not see that particluar tool in the panel, type Action Wizard in the “Find your
tools here,” field at the top of the tools panel. Select the Action Wizard tool.
6. A pop-up window will appear next, click on Make Accessible located at the top of the list of the
pop up. Click the blue Start button.
7. A Description pop-up window will appear next. Untick the Leave As Is button below the first title
field, and give the document an internal title name. Using the term OCR in your title, may help
to organize and find files you have made accessible using OCR tools. Select OK.
8. Next, another pop-up window appears labeled Recognize Text - General Settings. From the
Document Language drop down menu, select whatever language that the document is written
in. For Output, select Searchable Image and set Downsample To 600 dpi (use the highest dpi
provided to you in the list of options there). Select OK.
9. Next, a pop-up window appears inquiring whether or not there are fillable forms in the file, (for
purposes of this tutorial, my file has no forms). Select No, Skip this Step.
10. For the Read Aloud function, you’re asked again to select a reading language. Select the
language you want the document to be read to users in. Select OK.
11. If there’s an image on your page, a pop-up will appear asking you to add alternative text. Enter a
description of the image omitting any introducotry verbiage such as, “This is an image of,” since
the screen reader will say that automatically without human prompting. So you may write
something like, “woman posed with flower arrangement.” or whatever is the subject of your
image. If the image highlighted is not an image but a decorative element or something that
otherwise doesn’t need to be read to users, tick the Decorative figure box, and leave the text
window empty. Select Save & Close.
12. Next an Accessibility Checker Options window pop-up appears. Untick the box that says Create
accesility report – unless you track those types of documents, for ADA compliance reasons.
Leave all of the rest of the defaulted options in the pop-up selected, and select Start Checking.
13. At this point, a panel to the left of your document panel will open (if you don’t see it opened,
click the triangular open panel button). The panel shows you an Accessility Checker report. It is
likely to report that the document has issues. Twirl open the corresponding menu and right-click
on each of the issues with blue question marks next to them. Right click on the issue and select
Pass for each item noted. Close the panel. Save your document.
14. Now from the View tab, select Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud. Repeat and select Read
This Page Only, and listen to the reading. If the reading function starts to read your page, it is
now accessible to a screen reader, and your project of converting an image file to a text file is
concluded. Be sure to save your file (note that including OCR in the file title will be helpful for
relocating the file at a later point in time).
