The library has 3 public computers with Adobe Acrobat Pro, a software that converts image-only or non-OCR PDFs to documents that are screen-reader friendly. They are in the digital classroom (or 24/7 room), the Creator Studio, and at the designated computer in the main lobby. To use Acrobat, log in to these marked computers with the guest login and password. Help is available at the front desk to get you started.
To convert the PDF,
- Select the tools menu
- Choose Scan & OCR (or Enhance Text in older versions of Acrobat Pro)
- Click Recognize Text
Adobe will run a text recognition process that may take a minute, depending on the length and quality of your document, and you can save the edited file. To check if the process recognized the text correctly, you can use the Accessibilty Checker in Acrobat. To run the checker:
- Click Accessibility in the tools menu
- Choose Full Check (or Accessibility Report)
The OCR conversion process depends on a number of factors, and is not always 100% perfect! Similar to citation generators, it is up to you to check if the conversion is an accurate depiction of the image.
For a detailed look at the OCR conversion process, we've included a video from Illinois State University that has more information on different documents and their possible issues.
