Transform PDFs with AI-Powered OCR: Your Guide to PDFgear for Mac

In this episode, Gaurav offers a hands-on walkthrough of PDFgear: PDF Editor & Reader for Mac OS — a free PDF reader available on the Mac App Store — spotlighting its AI-powered OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities. This feature is especially handy for transforming PDFs composed mainly of images into editable, searchable text. The demo is performed on an M1 MacBook Air running the latest Mac OS Sonoma.

Key Highlights:

• About PDFgear:

  • A free PDF reader app available on the Mac App Store.
  • Stands out with its AI-driven OCR functionality.

• Demo Setup:

  • Conducted on a MacBook Air with Mac OS Sonoma.
  • Uses a PDF titled Malaysia Wildlife Document, mostly image-based.

• Step-by-Step Walkthrough:

  • Opening the PDF: Launch the document in PDFgear via the ‘Open with PDF Gear’ option.
  • Navigating the App: Use VoiceOver (VO) commands to explore the window spots menu and locate pages heavy with images.
  • Running OCR: With VO, select the OCR button and choose ‘Current file OCR’ to begin processing. The OCR completes quickly — about 15 to 20 seconds for 134 pages.
  • Exporting Text: Export options include ‘Export to one file’ or ‘Export to separated files.’ Due to accessibility challenges with the save dialog, it’s best to stick with default directories.
  • Accessing Converted Text: Find the output text file in the ‘Downloads’ folder and open it with TextEdit to review the OCR results.

This detailed guide empowers listeners to easily convert image-based PDFs into accessible, searchable text, improving document usability across devices.

Try PDFgear on the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pdfgear-pdf-editor-reader/id6469021132?mt=12

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Gaurav: Okay, guys, so today I'm doing a brief audio demonstration on the PDF gear application. This is a free PDF reader on the Mac App Store, and its unique point is that it can use AI to convert or to OCR documents. So that basically means if you have a document, a PDF document, which is mainly in the form of images, you can use the AI-powered features in this application to convert it into text, which you can then read. So I'm going to demonstrate that feature for you today. I'm using M1-powered MacBook Air using the latest version of Mac OS Sonoma. I'm going to navigate to a PDF document on my Mac, which was sent to me by someone called the Malaysia Wildlife Document.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: I'm going to V-O-Shift-M to open the context menu. Open with. Open with. Steam app. PDF expert app. PDF gear app.

Gaurav: So I'm going to open with PDF gear.

VoiceOver: With PDF gear. Malaysia wildlife. PDF window.

Gaurav: Let's open the, we've got the document open now in the PDF gear app. Let's open the window sports menu with VO plus U for umbrella.

VoiceOver: Window sports menu.

Gaurav: And let's see what window sports we have.

VoiceOver: Vertical splitter. Scroll area. Table. Document grooves.

Gaurav: Let's go into the document group just to navigate the document. I'm going to press VO space. And now I'm going to press VO shift down arrow to interact. So I'm on page six of 134. I'm going to press VO and the left and right arrow keys to navigate to the document. Page seven containing image. Page eight containing image.

VoiceOver: Page nine containing image. Page 10 containing image.

Gaurav: So as you can see, as I scroll through this document, it's mainly got images. So we'll have to find another way to read this document. Let's see what else we have in the window spots menu with VO plus U. Window spots menu.

VoiceOver: Vertical space scroll area. Scroll area.

Gaurav: Let's go into here, VO space.

VoiceOver: Scroll area.

Gaurav: Now we're going to interact VO shift down arrow.

VoiceOver: And scroll area.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: And we're going to navigate by pressing VO and right arrow. Button. Button. So as you can see here, as I'm pressing V-O and right arrow, all we hear is button, which means we are navigating through various buttons, but they are not labeled. Now, if we keep pressing V-O and right arrow, we're going to cycle through all of the buttons and right below these buttons are the names of the buttons. So we have to keep doing VO and right arrow until we get past all the unlabeled buttons. And then we'll come to the button names. Button, button, mode. So here you hear mode. That's one of the button names. Edit text.

VoiceOver: Markup, shapes, notes, image, link, play, convert, rotate, OCR. OCR.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Here, this is the one we want. So now we're on the text, which is the name of the button, which is right below the button. So we're going to press VO and up to come to the OCR button. Button. Now that I know I'm on the OCR button, I'm going to open the context menu, VO shift M for mother.

VoiceOver: Menu.

Gaurav: I'm going to press down arrow to scroll through the items in this menu. No VO, just down arrow.

VoiceOver: Local file OCR. Screenshot OCR. Current file OCR. Local file OCR.

Gaurav: I want local file OCR. So I'm going to hit enter.

VoiceOver: Open window. List view.

Gaurav: It's opened up a window with some options. Let's see what we have using V or right arrow.

VoiceOver: Cancel. Open. Open. Cancel. List view. Vertical split. List view. Cancel. Open. Open.

Gaurav: Oh, looks like I think I've opened the wrong option. So I'm going to go back to the OCR menu, VO and U for umbrella.

VoiceOver: Windows box menu, vertical scroll area. Scroll area, VO space. Scroll area.

Gaurav: Interact, VO shift down arrow.

VoiceOver: And scroll area.

Gaurav: I'm going to scroll through all the buttons again.

VoiceOver: Edit text, markup, shape, note, image, link, play, convert, rotate, OCR.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: I'm at OCR, so I'm going to press VO up. Button. Now I'm going to interact with the button, VO shift M for mother. Menu. I'm going to press the down arrow.

VoiceOver: Local file OCR. Screenshot OCR. Current file OCR.

Gaurav: So I think previously I had done local file OCR, so that was the wrong option. I need to go to current file OCR. I'm going to hit enter.

VoiceOver: PDF tier is not responding.

Gaurav: Application is not responding. Let's give it a few seconds. Now it says OCR processing. So it's already started to process the OCR now. It's just processing. Let's give it a minute. And each of those clicks is every time that it updates one page of processing. Okay, so it's done the entire OCR process. 134 pages done right there for you just within 15 to 20 seconds. We've now reached export dialog box. Let's just explore this with VO right arrow. Okay, so copy text and explore. Export and copy text seem to be the main options here. So I'm going to press VO space on export. And again, just down arrow to explore the menu. No view button, just down arrow.

VoiceOver: Export to one file. Export to separated file. Export to one file.

Gaurav: That's the option I want. I'm going to hit enter. Now it's opened up a finder window for me to select where to save this document. One thing you need to understand is that unfortunately, when this opens up the finder window in PDF gear, the window it opens up is not very accessible. Some elements of this screen are not easy to navigate. So whatever is the default folder where it's going to save the file, we will just go ahead with that by just simply hitting enter. Okay.

VoiceOver: Downloads, window, list view, PDF tier underscore OCR underscore one. Downloads, window, list view, row 23 of 23, PDF tier.

Gaurav: Okay, so it seems to have saved. I'm going to go to the downloads folder now. I've just hit command and H to hide the PDF tier application. I'm on the desktop.

VoiceOver: Macintosh HD. Atlas Dropbox, close window, Macintosh HD.

Gaurav: I'm going to press save. VO. I'm going to press command option L to open the downloads folder. And here you can see the PDF gear document, which we've OCR is now here in the download folder. Again, the reason why I saved it here was because this was default folder where PDF gear wanted to save it. And as I mentioned, the menu that PDFGear shows us to explore the different folders to save the document, that menu is not so accessible. So I just suggest to go with whatever is the default menu where it's saving at. So now I have this document. I'm going to press V or shift M to open the context menu. I'm going to go to open with. Text edit seems to be the default application. I'm going to hit enter. We're in the document. As you can see, I'm now able to scroll through the text which was there in this PDF document. As I showed you earlier in this demonstration, the PDF document only seemed to have images. But now that we've run it through the free OCR feature in PDF gear, It's now exported a .txt file, and now we can quickly and easily go to the text in this .txt file, which it has extracted from the PDF document. Hope this was helpful.