Q. Does the library offer software that can make a PDF text-searchable with OCR (Optical Character Recognition)?

Learn more about OCR and PDFs here.

Adobe has documentation on how to check PDFs for accessibility and add accessibility features to PDFs. Adobe also offers a series of in-depth training videos on accessibility through the "Adobe Accessibility Series." Please see links below.

If you are a full-time employee, you can access TCC's subscription of Adobe apps by "signing in" in here with your TCC Outlook email and choosing "Company or School Account." You will be prompted to then sign in using your MyTCC credentials. Or, by accessing the "Software Downloads" link on your MyTCC Dashboard and clicking on the "Kivuto Offerings" link (righthand side). From there, follow the links and directions for "Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription." It will look like it is selling you the product, but if you select "Get it now" you will be authenticated. 

The Access Services Office in the TCC Library is able to make article scans more accessible through OCR if you do not have access to the Creative Cloud/Adobe apps. Depending on the purpose of the scan and copyright, the AS Office can accept pdf files from employees and students to run through the OCR software, but our office cannot do the scanning for you unless it is through a Document Delivery request placed through our ILL portal here. 

Please inquire before sending your scan at: InterLibraryLoan@tulsacc.edu. We make no promises that the OCR software will recognize text with 100% accuracy. It depends on the quality of the scan. 

ALSO: Some of our copy/printer machines have scanner beds that will automatically add OCR to the anything you are scanning and sending to yourself (see this FAQ on how to scan). Please ask or feel free to test our machines.