The information below and in searches applies to scanned documents. How do I get Adobe to recognize text in a file saved from an on-line source?

The auto OCR is driving me nuts. I don't want it to scan every document I want to edit. Sometimes I only want to insert a line of text or an image. This needs to be an option to switch off for all documents. It wastes time and doesn't always recognise the text properly.

I've unchecked the Recognize Text option but it still runs. I have an older version of Adobe Acrobat X Standard. Any suggestions?

It does not help me. I have done steps 1 to 4. When I uncheck the "Recognize text" option I get a box saying
"All the unsaved changes made in this document will be lost. Would you like to continue? To retain the edits please cancel and save the document."
If I cancel, it rechecks the "Recognize Text" option
If I say OK it flashes and then shuts down Acrobat. When I restart, I am back where I started.
HELP!

I do remember the good-ol‘-days of Acrobat 9 where it was a professional tool and not an everything-for-everyone application.

Using Adobe Acrobat Pro XI, this is what worked for me:
* Edit > Preferences... > Reading
* Reading Order: "Use reading order in raw print stream".
* Page vs Document: "Only read the currently visible pages".

Feb.. 23 2020 still doesn't work; impossible to simply crop images and musical scores

OCR makes text fuzzy on scanned documents.

There is no setting to turn this off. I use Update to add / delete / change fields and it just automatically will start an OCR Scan which screws up the properties.

The default setting of this feature should NOT be set to run automatically—what a PIA!

After the latest update, this switch reverts back to ON every time I reopen... 30 minutes on the phone with support yesterday yielded NOTHING... the guy was clueless... Anyone else experiencing this or have a resolution / hot fix?

@Anette Duesing If it is greyed out then it means that the text is embedded and is editable as is and there is not text recognition that needs to happen. In essence the text wasn't converted to outlines. You will need a PDF that had the text converted to outlines in order for the text recognition to kick in. Make a file in InDesign. Just plop down a text box and fill it with some filler text. Select the text box with the selection tool, convert that text to outlines (Ctrl+Shift+O) and then export to PDF with the "high quality print" option. Open that PDF and the text recognition will kick in. then you will have the option to turn it off.

the box is there, but i cannot select it, because it is greyed out...

plus, i really do not want any text OR image recognition...! i would just like to copy a labeled (!!) scientific figure from a pdf to paste into pptx or word. this feature is really rubbish without the ability to turn it off!

Thanks!! Seems to have done the trick. Will keep an eye on it, though. Thanks again!

Thank you!! Worked like a charm!! You are my hero!!

I want it to OCR BUT NOT rotate - this is NO good. Even settings dont work.

it was wonderful help! this setting was so bad for me... thank you very much... my english isnt very good too!!!

PDFelement for Mac - Powerful Tool to Edit / Convert / Create PDFs (including scanned PDF files)

youtu.be/WRH6Q3oBqks

Thank you so much!!! This helps a ton! I wish the option was unchecked to begin with so that you don't have to go thru the text recognition first to then shut it off. It should have been something you had to check in order to use it. HOWEVER, I know I'm just being picky.

EVERYONE make this change by using a small one page file. Just scan something then convert it to a PDF. If you use a large multi page file the first time you will have to wait for the entire thing to process before you can uncheck the box.

In my test I hit Edit, let it process, unchecked the box, it converted back to normal. Then I closed out without saving. Tried it again and this time the box remained unchecked from the start. So from now on that box should remain unchecked and everyone should be good to go!

Thanks for listening! I know this will save people a lot of headaches!

That is fine. It might take a day or two for the application to show that an update is available. Moreover, the update is silent and your application will automatically be updated in due course without any manual intervention.
However, for triggering the update manually, you can click on Check for Updates... in the Help menu.
The latest version having this change is 18.009.20044 for Consumer and 17.011.30068 for Classic 2017.