Welcome! If you like, get started with this 3-minute quick audio clip; or, scroll past, and start with the Introduction section below.

Introduction

The topic of this tutorial is accessing and using Adobe Acrobat Pro, to convert a scanned PDF into an accessible PDF document. To support your remote teaching, you can access the Adobe Creative Suite, including Acrobat Pro DC, through the MyLab remote desktop.

If you haven’t already, you’ll first want to learn about how to use MyLab, before taking this workshop - check the Additional Resources section below.

While there are many uses for the Adobe suite, and Acrobat Pro, this workshop focuses on 1 specific task important to quickly adapting to remote teaching. If you have a paper resource which you’ve scanned into a PDF, that PDF is not accessible to all students until it’s gone through a process called OCR (optical character recognition). The OCR process allows the PDF to be read aloud by screen reader software.

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Access Adobe Acrobat Pro through the MyLab virtual desktop.
Perform OCR on a scanned PDF using Acrobat Pro.
Save the converted PDF.

Time Commitment

This workshop will take about 10 minutes to complete.

Content

Adobe Acrobat Pro has a quick and easy feature to do OCR – a typical document takes under 2 minutes!

To get started, once you’ve logged into MyLab, choose the “Creative Cloud Programs” option. This will open the desktop which includes the Adobe software.

choosing the adobe desktop in mylab

Open Adobe Acrobat DC from the desktop. If Adobe prompts you for a sign-in, use your MCLA ID in the format of an email: for example, A10001000@mcla.edu. Follow the prompts to sign in with your regular MCLA password.

adobe sign-in window

Adobe may claim that your access is only a 7-day trial. This is not true! Simply click the “Start Trial” button – but rest assured that you’ll have access beyond 7 days.

Once you’ve opened Acrobat Pro (DC), use the Open File button to select, and open, your scanned PDF. In the right-hand Tools column, select the option “Scan & OCR”.

A new toolbar will appear at the top of the document. Click the “Recognize Text” dropdown menu, and select the option “In this File”. Last, click the dark blue “Recognize Text” button to begin the process.

recognize text button in acrobat

Acrobat Pro DC will display a progress bar in the lower right corner.

Once the process has completed, simply save this version of the document.

acrobat progress bar

Congratulations! By investing less than 5 minutes, you’ve ensured that your scanned PDF will be equally accessible to all students.

So, to review: In the MyLab desktop environment, you can use the OCR feature in Acrobat Pro to change your scanned PDF into a document that all of your students can use equally.

Review

So, to review: In the MyLab desktop environment, you can use the OCR feature in Acrobat Pro to change your scanned PDF into a document that all of your students can use equally.

Thanks! Please check out the other resources in this series. And be sure to reach out to the Center for Academic Technology, and the Center for Teaching and Learning, anytime you have questions or need support. See you soon.

Additional Resources

How do I find and access MyLab?