Enhance scanned documents

Last updated on Aug 16, 2025

Learn how to improve the quality of scanned PDF files using the scan enhancement features in Adobe Acrobat.

Enhancing scanned PDFs improves their visual quality and makes them more useful by adding searchable text, which is valuable for archiving and digital distribution.

Open the scanned file and select Scan & OCR from the All tools menu.

Select Enhance scanned file and choose the pages you want to enhance in the dialog box that opens.

Select the Recognize text checkbox to enable OCR.

Select Settings and adjust the scanned PDF settings as required.

Enhance Scanned PDF dialog box with options to adjust page range, compression, filters, and enable text recognition. — Using the Enhance Scanned PDF settings, you can customize image quality, apply filters, and enable text recognition to prepare your file for editing or searching.

Select OK to save the settings.

Select Enhance.

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Scanned PDF settings

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