OCR AppleScript For Adobe Acrobat X

Once upon a time, Mac author Joe Kissell wrote an AppleScript that would allow you to automatically OCR PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat 8.

Back in 2008, I turned that Acrobat OCR AppleScript into a Droplet and posted it to the site.

Since the release of Acrobat X, I have received many many (have I mentioned many?) requests for an Acrobat X version of the script.

Unfortunately, this has been difficult for two reasons:

Acrobat X is notoriously challenging to script
I don’t own Acrobat X

Fortunately, the aforementioned Joe Kissell comes to the rescue yet again. As part of his excellent Take Control Of Your Paperless Office, Joe provided his readers with an update that includes OCR Applescripts for Acrobat X.

Joe was kind enough to share this update with DocumentSnap readers, so if these scripts help you out please do me a favor and go buy Joe’s Ebook. It really is great.

(Photo by Aurelian Săndulescu)

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About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 4 comments

tsolignani - December 27, 2012 Reply

Do you know whether it is working with Acrobat XI? Thank you.

tsolignani - December 27, 2012 Reply

It does not, I just tried it. That's due to how Adobe moved action out of menus in XI. Maybe there is a workaround, but that's beyond me. Should you know how I can set watch folders with Acrobat XI, please drop me a line, I would love to be able to. Thank you.

Use Hazel to Automatically OCR PDFs using Acrobat - September 8, 2011 Reply

[…] The above Applescript is actually a droplet where you can drag & drop multiple PDFs & have OCR run on them automatically via Acrobat 9. There is also a version for Acrobat X here. […]

Use Hazel to Automatically OCR PDFs using Acrobat - September 5, 2011 Reply

[…] PDFs & have OCR run on them automatically via Acrobat 9. There is also a version for Acrobat X here. Filed Under: Mac, Software Tagged With: automation, PDF, […]