Your accountant emails you a PDF receipt and when you try to copy a number out, nothing happens. That's because it's a scanned PDF — really just a photo of a paper page, wrapped in a PDF shell.
Pictures, not text
A scanned PDF is made by running paper through a scanner or photographing it with a phone. The result looks like a document, but inside the file there's only an image. There's no selectable text, no search, no copy-paste. Your eyes read the words; the computer just sees a picture. That's why some PDFs let you highlight text and others don't.
Making it searchable with OCR
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads the image and figures out what the words say, turning the scan into proper searchable text. After OCR, you can copy phrases, search for a name, or even convert PDF to Word for editing. Most modern PDF tools, including Flint, run OCR in the background so you barely notice it happening.
Working with scanned PDFs
Until you've run OCR, edits are limited — you can annotate, rotate pages, or merge scans into one, but you can't change the text itself. If you only need to combine receipts into one file, that's fine. If you need to edit the words, OCR first.
FAQ
How do I know if my PDF is scanned?
Try to select a word with your cursor. If it highlights character by character, it's a native PDF. If you can only select the whole image as a block, it's a scan.
Is OCR perfect?
Close, but not always. Clear typed text is usually 99% accurate. Handwriting, smudged scans or unusual fonts may produce errors. Always proofread important sections after OCR.
Can a scanned PDF be signed?
Yes — signing tools treat it like any other PDF. Your signature goes on top of the image, and the result looks the same as signing native text.
Got a scan you need to edit? Run it through Flint and you'll get searchable, editable text in seconds.