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- Import an existing scanned PDF or scan a new page.
- Choose the OCR language and enable searchable PDF output.
- Save a new PDF and search for a phrase you can see on the scan.
Open the OCR settings
NAPS2 documents OCR from its toolbar, or Tools and OCR on Mac. Download the language used in the document. If the scan mixes languages, configure the relevant languages rather than relying on an unrelated default. Language selection and source quality both affect what a reader can search.
Enable searchable output
Turn on Make PDFs searchable using OCR, then import the existing PDF. Save to a new filename. The original page image and the text used for search have different jobs: a page can still look fine while the recognized text contains errors.
Check an existing text layer
NAPS2 explains that imported pages already containing text are normally left alone, while pages without text receive OCR. If a broken text layer is the problem, repeatedly importing and saving is not proof that recognition ran again. Inspect the relevant options and documented behavior before processing an archive.
Test the saved PDF
Open the saved file in another viewer. Search for a visible sentence, copy a product code, and inspect punctuation or accented characters. Compare the copied text with the page. For a price list, check numeric values and row boundaries separately before using any later spreadsheet extraction.
Exporting text and improving a scan
NAPS2 does not document a direct plain-text export for OCR results; its suggested route is copying text from the saved PDF in a viewer. Its OCR settings also offer quality and correction choices. Try a difficult page first and compare results before applying slower settings to every file.
Sources
Updated October 30, 2026. Based on the linked documentation; the tools have not been benchmarked by NarrowTools. Editorial policy