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Text layer

The text layer is the part of a PDF you can select and copy. It is separate from the scanned image: the text you see on a scan is pixels, and sometimes there is an invisible layer of recognized text underneath.

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Three cases

  • Text-only PDF: exported from software such as Word; the text can be selected. Replacement reuses the original font.
  • Image-only PDF: a scan with no text layer. OCR is needed first.
  • “Sandwich” PDF: an invisible layer of OCR text sits beneath the scanned image to make it searchable. PDF Text Replacer treats it as an image and deletes the invisible old text in the replaced areas.

Why it matters

  • If a replacement changes only the image and not the hidden text layer, a search still finds the old text.
  • If redaction covers only the image and does not delete the hidden text layer, the sensitive information can still be copied out.

PDF Text Replacer handles both layers in replacement and in redaction.

Related pages

Why PDF find and replace is hard

Word text is a flow of paragraphs that can reflow. A PDF page is glyphs placed at coordinates, and a scan is only an image. What replacing a word means in each.

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Edit scanned PDF text

Learn how EnjoyPDF for Windows edits words in scanned PDFs. Follow the steps, check font and image limits, and review the result before and after saving.

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OCR

OCR turns text in an image into text and positions a program can work with. Text on scans and photos can only be found, replaced or redacted after OCR.

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