How to make image-only PDFs readable

Readable and editable PDFs at the touch of a button.

OrbitNote OCR Scan Icon

Make every classroom PDF readable

How many times have you gone to share a resource or text extract with your students only to realise that it’s either paper based or it’s an image of an online PDF? Perhaps you’ve shared an image-only PDF with your class, only to have to re-share a readable version later, causing confusion. OrbitNote is our PDF reader and editor which allows you and your students to interact with PDFs like never before.

One-click OCR scanning

The OCR scanning feature in OrbitNote lets you make use of existing classroom papers, image-only PDFs, and other inaccessible resources by converting them to readable text that can be shared with students to edit as they need to with our online pdf editor, OrbitNote.

How to make your image-only PDFs readable

  1. Open OrbitNote. Go to Orbit.texthelp.com
  2. OrbitNote automatically scans the PDF to check if it is readable
  3. You’ll get a prompt to use the OCR Scanning feature if it’s not readable
  4. Click the button to have your PDF scanned in one click
  5. Once your PDF has gone through OrbitNote’s OCR process in the background, you’ll get a readable and editable version of the same PDF
  6. Your readable and editable PDF is now ready to go
  7. Now you and your students can use OrbitNote’s tools like text to speech, highlighters, annotation tools and more.

Where does it work?

  • OCR scanning is available in OrbitNote for Chrome
  • Coming soon to OrbitNote for Edge
  • Both Google and Microsoft users can use the OCR scanning option
  • OCR scanning also works with PDFs saved locally on your computer as well as web PDFs, including PDFs in Learning Management Systems like Schoology.

Are you ready to find out more about OrbitNote?

If you have any questions about the making image-only PDFs readable with OrbitNote, you’d like to see it in action or you’d like to talk to one of our Texthelpers about licensing options, then please complete this form.

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