June 02, 2025

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

9 minutes

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…

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