Discover Chrome’s New Feature: Make Scanned PDFs Searchable and Editable for Effortless Text Access

Google is piloting a new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature within Chrome’s integrated PDF Viewer, designed to simplify the process of extracting and copying text from scanned PDF documents.

If you’ve faced difficulties in retrieving text from a scanned PDF in the past, you might have thought about investing in costly OCR tools or utilizing various online services. However, there’s no need for concern! Chrome, a browser you likely use across Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook devices, is incorporating advanced built-in OCR functionality.

Enhancements in Chrome’s OCR for PDF Viewing

Currently, Chrome is trialing a feature for its PDF Viewer, known as ‘PDF Searchify,’ accessible via a browser flag, which enhances the ability to locate and replicate text from scanned PDFs.

Previously available in ChromeOS, text extraction capabilities now specifically cater to PDF images from scanners, enabling users to engage with the text embedded within these images. The upgraded Chrome PDF Viewer allows for the searching and editing of text present in PDF images, thereby enhancing usability and overall accessibility.

The “PDF Searchify feature” applies OCR technology to recognize text from PDF images, rendering it both searchable and editable, and is operational on Chrome for Mac, Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS.

To activate this feature in Chrome, follow these steps:

1. Open Chrome.
2. Go to chrome://flags.
3. Look for “Make the text in PDF images interactable.”
4. Set it to “Enabled” and restart the browser.

Google Chrome already provides text extraction features through integrated Google Lens, which can translate and extract text from various media, including scanned PDFs. However, Google Lens does not yet support searching for specific words within PDF images or editing the extracted text.

This new feature may soon reach a stable version in Chrome. What do you think? Are you impressed by the OCR advancements in Chrome? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

Furthermore, Google Chrome might soon launch a revamped Task Manager and enable support for unscoped extensions within the Omnibox, allowing these extensions enhanced permissions for interacting with address bar inputs.

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Author: Egor Kostenko

My goal is to make complex technical topics simple and accessible. On this site, I gather unique and useful content that not only solves users’ problems but also helps them better understand the capabilities of Windows.