Work with scanned PDFs

A scanned PDF contains page images and no text layer, so there is nothing to select and no quote to capture. PDF Case Review still works on these documents; this page explains what changes and how to get real text back.

What works without a text layer

• The document opens and renders normally.
• You can still mark passages: switch the highlight tool on (the marker icon in the viewer toolbar) and draw over the region you care about. This creates a free highlight, a marked region rather than a quoted passage.
• Free highlights carry notes like any other highlight, appear in the Highlights view as [image region], and render in reports the same way, with their page citation and note.
• Free highlights live in the sidecar only. They are not embedded into the PDF on save, so they do not appear in other PDF readers.

What does not work

• The selection-based flows need text: the floating highlight button, Ctrl+Alt+1..9 on a selection, and quote capture all require a text layer.
• A highlight whose text could not be captured shows (no text captured) in the view and the report. On a scanned page that is expected; add a note to say what the passage is.

Get a text layer with OCR

The reliable fix is to run OCR once and read the OCRed copy. ocrmypdf adds an invisible text layer under the scanned image without changing how the page looks:

ocrmypdf scanned-case.pdf case-with-text.pdf

Open case-with-text.pdf in PDF Case Review and every text feature works: selection highlighting, quote capture, category shortcuts and quoted reports. OCR quality varies with scan quality; spot check a few captured quotes against the page image.

PDF Case Review never runs OCR itself and never modifies your original file.