Most e-filing courts require PDFs with selectable text. A scanned page is only a picture of text until you run OCR (optical character recognition), which adds an invisible text layer the court's system can search.
Courts on this site that require or recommend it
Required: California Superior Courts, Florida state courts, New York State courts, Texas: Harris County District Courts, Illinois trial courts, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida. Recommended: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Nevada, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.
Check your file first
Open the PDF, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and search for a word you can see on a scanned page. If nothing is found, that page needs OCR. The checker lists the exact pages.
Option 1: Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
- Open the Scan & OCR tool and choose Recognize text, then In this file.
- Choose the document language and run it.
- Save the result under a new file name.
Option 2: Free, with OCRmyPDF
OCRmyPDF is free, open-source software for Windows, Mac and Linux. In a terminal:
ocrmypdf scanned.pdf searchable.pdfIf some pages already have text, add --skip-text to leave them alone. OCRmyPDF saves PDF/A by default, which also covers courts that ask for PDF/A.
Option 3: Scan it searchable from the start
Most office scanners and scanning apps have a "searchable PDF" or OCR setting. Scan at 300 dpi in black and white: that's what most courts ask for, and it keeps the file small.
Check it again
Run the new file through the checker to confirm every page now has text.
Last updated October 18, 2026. Menu names can vary by software version.