Google Chrome may soon be able to search text in PDFs that are just images

I’m sure you’ve been there: a PDF gets delivered to you in one way or another and when you open it up to search for whatever piece of info you are looking for, you realize this PDF isn’t a document at all, but is simply an image that has been converted to a PDF. It’s frustrating for sure and a use of the PDF format that happens frequently when it absolutely shouldn’t be. If you want to send me a picture of a document, just send an image file, right?

Google is working on a Chrome fix for this

Found just this morning being added to the Chromium Repositories, a change is in the works for the Chrome browser that would ostensibly allow Chrome’s PDF reader to scan PDF files that are just images, utilize OCR (optical character recognition), and allow users to search those sorts of PDFs just like a proper text document.

It makes sense, really, since Google uses OCR in all sorts of tools already. Google Lens is a prime example, where you can extract text from photos you take in a snap; and Google Translate is yet another place where OCR has been in place for years and allows for users to point their camera at text and see a translation in real time. The tech isn’t new, it’s tested and works well, and now it could make all PDFs searchable in the Chrome browser.

But we’re very early on at this point. The initial change to add this to Chrome was just submitted a few weeks ago, so don’t go expecting to search text in that image-heavy PDF just yet. Once it arrives, I’m confident it will work very well; and like it would have in quite a few scenarios I’ve run into over the years, I’m sure it will come in very handy. We’ll keep an eye on this one as it develops.