• Filed to: Mac Tutorials
Smallpdf is the most popular online software, and aids over 25 million monthly users to convert PDF files to Word. Not only that, we can also save your files to PPT, Excel, and JPG images. With OCR enabled, we also make sure that scanned PDF files will also be transformed appropriately, with all the text extracted for you to edit. How to add text to a PDF on a Mac Once you have the PDF document open in Preview (or Quick Look), try clicking in the space where the PDF indicates you should enter some data.
This tool lets you add text, images, bookmarks, and more to your PDF. In addition, a user can also highlight text, underline, use strike-through features on the text, and crop PDF pages on Mac. Watermarks can also be used to protect your PDF files on Mac. You can even edit and convert scanned PDF files with PDFelement Pro. The PDF Text Extractor You Need For Mac users there is no better tool than the PDFelement Pro PDFelement Pro. With it, you would be able to extract any text from PDF with ease. It has a host of features through which you can easily edit any sort of PDF document. Some of its major offerings are: You can edit a PDF like a word document.
While PDF does have its own set of advantages including enhancing security, what is somewhat lacking is its flexibility. Editing a PDF document can be complex and confusing. If you want to extract text from PDF, then you will find the whole process to be difficult. This can be due to the presence of graphics as well as the layout of the PDF file. Not to worry though, as in this article, you will find two easy and fast ways to extract the text you need from your PDF file with PDFelement Pro on Mac (10.15 Catalina included).
Part 1. The PDF Text Extractor You Need
For Mac users there is no better tool than the PDFelement Pro. With it, you would be able to extract any text from PDF with ease. It has a host of features through which you can easily edit any sort of PDF document. Some of its major offerings are:
- You can edit a PDF like a word document. You can easily add, delete, cut and replace elements like text, images and watermarks etc.
- You can easily convert the document into a Word document if you free more at ease editing there. The structure and layout of the file will be the same in the Word document.
- You can combine multiple PDFs into one and split one into many. This can come in handy at multiple times.
- Easily extract text and images from any part of the document and export them to any document in any other format.
After you have downloaded PDFelement Pro for Mac (10.15 Catalina included), you then need to copy the icon into your Applications folder. Just drag the icon to Applications, and then follow the guide below to start copying the text you want from the PDF document.
Step 1. Open the PDF Document in the Program
Run the program and click the 'Open File' button to import your PDF files to the program. After the document is loaded, you can then proceed to the next step.
Convert Pdf To Text Mac Free
Step 2. Extract the Text You Want
Click the Edit button on the top toolbar and then select the text you want and after that, right-click to choose the 'Copy' option. Now you have copied the text.
Step 3. Paste the Text Where You Want to
The next step is simple too. Just open another document where you wish to extract the text to and paste it the desired location. Here I have used Pages for Mac for simple depiction. You can paste the text by opening any other new Word document – it's pretty simple.
Part 2. How to Convert PDF to Word for Text Extraction
You can extract text after converting your PDF files to MS Word with PDFelement Pro. Some users say that this is the better option as a word processor can make things easier for you, if you are going to manage text anyway.
Step 1. Open Your PDF Document
Launch the program and click on 'Open File' and browse to find the file you want to extract the image from. You can add multiple files for extraction. All image files will open in PDF format.
Step 2. Open the Conversion Tool
Navigate to the Toolbar and find the 'Convert' button. Click it to open a new window where you can set the page range for your document.
Step 3. Set the Parameters
In the new window, you can add files for conversion, customize page range - and then click on 'Convert' to start the process. After the conversion, you can easily copy and paste the text from the Word processor.
Using this software, you can maximize the full potential of any PDF document. It can come in very handy. For instance, suppose you are looking at all the invoices for the month to create a spread-sheet about total expense. You have to enter each invoice number and the documents are in PDF format. You can easily open them in the tool and extract the numbers to your spread sheet.
Tools like these come in very handy in various work purposes and must be used and taken advantage by professionals in any sphere of work. You are always going to need to select text or images out from PDF documents when you’re working. With the PDFelement Pro, you can do anything from extracting texts to images from PDF files easily.
When converting scanned invoices, reports or images into editable formats, OCR is required. If you are looking for the best free OCR solutions for mac like many others, we collect a list for you: a list of 12 powerful mac free ocr software or online, free OCR services to perform satisfactory OCR on digitized files for 2021.
Full List of Mac Free OCR
Platform | Input | Output | |
---|---|---|---|
1. PDF OCR X Community | Offline | PDF and Image | PDF, Text |
Offline | PDF and Image | Text, Image | |
3. OneNote OCR | Offline | PDF and Image | Text |
4. OCR App by LEAD Tools | Offline | PDF and Image | Text |
5. Easy Screen OCR for Mac | Offline | Screenshot | Text |
6. DigitEyeOCR | Offline | BMP and GIF | Text |
7. Google Docs | Online | PDF and Image | PDF, Word, ODT, RTF, Text, HTML, ePub |
Online | PDF and Image | Word, Excel, Text | |
Online | PDF and Image | Word, Excel, PPT, Text, ePub, HTML, etc. | |
Online | PDF and Image | Word, Excel, Text, ePub, PPT, DjVu, etc. | |
Online | PDF, Image and DjVu | PDF, Word, Text | |
Online | PDF and Image | PDF, Word, Text, RTF |
Free Try on The Best Mac OCR Program
- Perform OCR on scanned documents and images
- OCR files and export as 10 editable formats
- Advanced OCR settings to improve OCR accuracy
- Batch OCR
- Recognize 27~200 languages
- High quality OCR results
6 Best Free OCR Software for Mac in 2021
There are 2 types of free OCR solutions for Mac users, either online or offline. In this part, we list 6 top free OCR software for MacOS basing on text recognition accuracy and overall features.
1. PDF OCR X Community
PDF OCR X Community is a simple drag-and-drop utility that converts single-page PDFs and images into text documents or searchable PDF files, it supports for more than 60 languages. For multi-page PDFs and batch conversion features, you need to pay its enterprise version.
Download Address: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-ocr-x-community-edition/id571442933?mt=12
Advantages:
- Extremely easy to use;
- Support both PDF and image;
- Recognize 60 languages;
Disadvantages:
- Free edition only OCR single-page PDF;
- Formatting is messed up when working on complicate files;
- Relatively slow OCR process;
2. Evernote
Evernote is a popular note-syncing service, enables users to collect, nuture and share ideas across desktop and mobile platforms. One of its easily overlooked features is automatic OCR service. Users will be allowed to add images into Evernote server for automatic OCR, you may have to wait, but 10 minutes will be quite enough to finish the OCR.
Download Address: https://evernote.com/download
Advantages:
- Available for all platforms (MacOS, Windows, iOS, Android);
- Support both PDF and image;
- Recognize 28 languages;
Disadvantages:
- Limited OCR feature when dealing with PDF (file size, pages, resolution, etc.);
- Relatively slow OCR processing;
Evernote OCR review, how-to guide and troubleshooting
Evernote is one of the best and most popular cross-platform note-taking apps. In this article, you will find how to use Evernote OCR and what to do if Evernote OCR is not working.
READ MORE >3. OneNote OCR
Microsoft OneNote is a program to take and manage notes anytime and anywhere. It greatly facilitates the collaborations between team members. Not only limited to manually input texts to create notes, Microsoft OneNote also embeds the OCR feature, OneNote OCR allowing users to recognize texts from images, so the image texts can be copied and paste as editable or searchable note.
Download Address: https://www.onenote.com/download
Advantages:
- Available for all platforms;
- Support both PDF and image;
Disadvantages:
- Can only copy text from PDF or image, no formatting is retained;
- OCR fails or crashes sometimes;
How to Do OneNote OCR on Image or PDF(Mac, Windows, iPad)
An impressive feature of OneNote is its built-in capability to do OneNote OCR. Here we are going to introduce OneNote OCR, demonstrate how to OCR image or PDF with OneNote.
READ MORE >4. OCR App by LEADTOOLS
OCR App by LEADTOOLS is a MacOS application designed to recognize and extract texts from images. Also it offers a set of tools to improve the OCR accuracy, such as tweak OCR Engine Settings, flip, reverse, adjust binarization or brightness of the image. It can also perform OCR on scanned PDFs, but only export files as text. If you want o convert uploaded files to other format with LEADTOOLS, you will need to copy and paste to the text processor accordingly.
Download Address: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/leadtools-ocr/id604393629?mt=12
Advantages:
- Easy to use;
- Advanced settings to improve OCR accuracy;
- Support both image and PDF;
- Fast OCR;
Disadvantages:
- Recognize only 5 languages;
- No formatting is retained, only text;
5. Easy Screen OCR for Mac
It is a light and simple Mac free OCR software to recognize texts from images. All you need to do is, capturing the screenshots of your file first, then performing OCR on the file to make the image text copyable. Also, it allows users to save the screenshot as PNG or PDF format. However, this free OCR software for mac only allows users to OCR 20 images for free.
Download Address: https://easyscreenocr.com/
Advantages:
- Easy to use;
- Small in size;
- Support to take screenshots from any files;
Disadvantages:
- Only 20 images can be processed with OCR;
- No formatting is retained;
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
6. DigitEyeOCR
Though DigitEyeOCR has discontinued to update for many years, for users who are using MacOS 10.10 and earlier, it is still worth a try. It is a free OCR software for mac to recognize texts from BMP and GIF images. If you want to do OCR on other image formats, you will need to convert the file to DigitEye OCR supported formats.
Download Address: https://digiteyeocr.en.softonic.com/mac
Disadvantages:
- Only support BMP and GIF;
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Relatively slow OCR process;
- No update for years;
6 Best online, free Services for Mac
I Love Pdf Converter
Also, there are quite a lot of online, free OCR services for mac users, but not all of them can actually perform OCR or bring satisfactory OCR results. And here we pick 6 best free OCR tools online according to our OCR testing.
7. Google Docs
Google Docs is a service offered by Google to manage web-based documents, like creating, editing Word, Spreadsheets, presentations, even store them online for easy access on different devices. Users can perform Google OCR on images, scanned PDFs, it is fast with basically satisfactory results.
Mac Pdf Converter To Word
Advantages:
- Support images and PDF;
- Excellent support on output format (searchable PDF, Word, ODT, RTF, TXT, HTML, ePub);
- Edit files after OCR processing within Google Docs;
Disadvantages:
- Require several steps to finish the OCR;
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Take time to process OCR;
8. Online OCR
Online OCR is an online OCR service that can recognize the texts and characters from scanned files and images. It requires no software installation, what you need to do is upload the file (not exceeding size of 5MB) as guided, choose the language and output format(Word, Excel or Text), then 'Convert' to start the OCR process. Once finish, a download link will be offered to download the converted file.
Advantages:
- Support both image and PDF;
- Easy to use;
- Export files as Word, Excel and Text;
- Recognize 46 languages;
Disadvantages:
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Need to manually adjust formatting in the output file;
- Max file size limit 15 MB;
9. Online2PDF
Online2PDF is another online platform to manage PDF files, such as editing, compressing ,unlocking ,converting, merging, protecting and so on. Comparing with other online, free OCR tools, Online2pdf offers extended features to customize the output and support more output formats.
Advantages:
- Batch OCR;
- Support both image and PDF;
- Excellent support for output format;
- Allow customizing output files;
Disadvantages:
- File quantity and size limit;
- Recognize only 6 languages;
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
10. ConvertioOCR
Convertio is an online, free tool to OCR image and scanned documents, then save them as various editable formats. You can upload files from local or via url, even icloud storage accounts. It allows users to perform OCR on a multiple-language file.
Advantages:
- Upload files from local, URl or icloud storage services;
- Recognize multiple-language file;
- Excellent support for output formats (11 formats);
- Convert all or specific pages;
- Save converted files to Dropbox or Google Drive;
Disadvantages:
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Relatively slow OCR processs;
- Need to manually adjust the formatting;
- Only 10 pages can be done with OCR for free;
11. New OCR
New OCR can convert JPG, PNG, GIF, MBP, TIFF, PDF and DJVU files into Doc, TXT or PDF format. To improve the OCR accuracy, New OCR allows users to rotate images and analyze page layout before the OCR processing. If you want to export the files as other formats, you need to click the “Download” button at the bottom of its page to export.
Advantages:
- Support image, PDF and DjVu files;
- Export files as Word, Text and searchable PDF format;
- Allow to rotate or analyze page layout for more accurate OCR results;
Disadvantages:
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Fail to do OCR sometimes;
12. Free Online OCR
Free Online OCR is a free service enabling users to convert images, scanned PDFs into editable and searchable text, such as DOC, RTF,TXT or PDF. It will rotate the pages automatically for accurate OCR, you can get editable files with nice formatting.
Advantages:
- Support both image and PDF;
- Export files as Word, PDF, Text and RTF;
Disadvantages:
- Unstable OCR accuracy;
- Need to manually adjust formatting in the output file;
What if Mac Free OCR Tools Fall Short?
However, these online/free mac OCR tools are not suitable for all mac users, you may feel not satisfied in one way or another:
- There is a size limit of the files;
- It doesn’t support various input or output format;
- Risk of privacy leakages;
- The tool doesn’t support your expected language;
- The OCR result is not satisfied;
- It is feature limited;
......
As we all know, “free” means you cannot get everything you desire from the service, if you require higher than those free services can offer, you will need to pay. This is also true to OCR services.
Edit Pdf Text Mac Free
Best Solution If Mac Free OCR Software/Service Not Working
Choices on paid professional OCR software for Mac users are large in quantity. But if you are looking for the one combining simplicity, versatility and affordability, Cisdem PDF Converter OCR is absolutely the best choice.
Cisdem PDF Converter OCR is a dedicated Mac OCR software to convert and create PDF, also perform OCR on scanned documents or images to make them editable & searchable. One thing makes Cisdem outperform its competitors is its high quality OCR performance:accurate OCR results and maintained original formatting.
Use Cisdem to OCR All Files Now
- Convert PDF to 16 formats;
- OCR scanned documents and images into Word, Excel, PPT, Keynote, Pages, etc;
- Convert images;
- Create PDF from virtually all documents;
- Batch conversion;
- High quality OCR and conversion results;
Steps to Perform OCR on Files with Cisdem
- Add scanned PDF or image to Converter interface.
Drag and drop, or click '+' to add files. - Turn the OCR button ON, choose page range, file language and output format.
- Optional. Tweak the advanced OCR settings for more accurate results.
Click the 'Settings' icon, a new interface will appear. You will find all the contents are marked as Texts, Images or Tables in different colorful boxes. If you want to output a part as table, remove the current mark box, click on 'Mark Tables' in the OCR applied zone, then drag a mark box to select the part you want to mark as Tables. - Click “Convert” to start OCR.
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