Force OCR doesn't work

[twinger]

If I upload a pdf file for OCR and it already has text recognised by the scanner, PDF24 will not rescan the text, even if I tick "Force OCR".

The automatic OCR from my scanner is poor. PDF24 normally does a much better job on a plain scan. But when the text is already there and I tick "Force OCR", the resulting file still has the original text with all its errors.

[henryka]

PDF24’s Force OCR option currently doesn’t replace or re-recognize existing text layers — it only adds OCR if none is found. To improve your file:

First, remove the old text layer (e.g. print to image-PDF, or use tools like Ghostscript/PDF-XChange to rasterize).

Then run OCR in PDF24 again — this time it will process the clean image and generate a new text layer.

That way, you bypass the scanner’s poor OCR and let PDF24 handle recognition from scratch.

[tamara423]

<p data-start="77" data-end="468">If ocr is being forced but nothing happens, it might be a permissions issue (the app can’t write the output) or a missing component/library that the ocr engine needs. maybe try running the software as admin (or with elevated privileges) and seeing if there are any log files or error messages you can share. also double-check that the input file is clean (not too damaged or weird format).</p>
 
<p data-start="470" data-end="565">If you send me the screenshot of what you see (or any error text) I’ll help you narrow it down.</p>

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