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In macOS 12 (Monterey), there is a new feature called Live Text. It can recognize text in the images by OCR.

MacOS's Preview app lets you select text in an image file, and also lets you convert the image to a PDF file. Meanwhile, I did not find a way to export the image into a searchable PDF which can let you search and select text in that exported PDF file.

Is there any way to convert images into a search PDF file in macOS Monterey with Live Text (OCR)?

Xaree Lee
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In macOS Monterey Ver 12.3.1 and Safari Ver 15.4 at least you can load an image in Safari and click "File" -> "Export as PDF...". Just make sure you enlarge the image to 100% or else Safari will make a ugly formatted PDF. Also, any text highlighted before you export will show up in the PDF doc.

I have not found a way yet to export an Image file as a text readable PDF from Preview.

W Henderson
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In Preview 11.0 running under macOS Ventura 13.4.1 on an MacBook Air with M2 processor, this works. First, make sure all the text in the document is selected, because for long documents, detecting all the text takes time. If you clover-A too soon, you're only going to save that text that was identified so far. Then, in the File > Export... dialog, check "Embed Text", and Save.

The text becomes searchable in other PDF readers.

billredmann
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  • What is „clover-A“? – soundflix Jul 19 '23 at 18:18
  • ⌘-A (command-A) looks like -A – billredmann Jul 20 '23 at 19:18
  • Also, for long documents, I've taken to doing a search, e.g., "clover-F test" and waiting until the spinning that indicates the search is still in progress completes. It doesn't have to find anything, but the completion ensures all the text that can be identified is identified. Then clover-A and Export. – billredmann Jul 20 '23 at 19:20