PDFify is a small macOS tool for combining pages from different sources to one PDF and applying text recognition if required.
Text Recognition - OCR with PDFify
Text recognition is automatically applied to images or PDF files that do not contain text information. If text information already exists, the OCR button can be used to force recognition of the entire document. OCR can be applied several times to the same document with different settings to get optimal results.
Background
When you save a document that has been processed with OCR, the images it contains are re-saved using your default compression (set in the settings under Squeeze). If you haven’t chosen a level there yet, a nearly lossless image compression is used. This keeps the file compact and prevents it from growing noticeably, even when OCR is applied several times. Real text and vector graphics are preserved. This applies equally to text recognition in the app and via the quick actions.
Two implementations are available for text recognition:
Tesseract
Tesseract is a very mature open source solution that is supported by large companies. PDFify uses the current version 5 in a native Swift pipeline specifically optimized for Apple Silicon (M1 and newer) - making text recognition noticeably faster and more reliable.
Over 100 languages are available with Tesseract. Separate data sets optimized for speed and quality are in place for each language. In the setting dialog you can choose between fast and best. We recommend to only select a limited number of languages.
Apple Vision
Apple Vision OCR is a solution integrated in macOS and iOS. Supported languages include English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.
Add Pages
You have two options for getting started with PDFify:
- Start with an blank document
- Open an existing PDF with PDFify. Apply OCR manually if necessary.
You can add new pages by dragging and dropping the content onto the PDFify window. You can also drag your document onto the dock icon to open the app directly.
Furthermore, you can also add content
- by copying and pasting files, PDFs, images, screenshots and more, and
- choosing
Add Pagesfrom the toolbar or the main menu entries belowPages.
Tip
You can always undo to return to the previous state.
The contents are imported at the end of documents in the sorting familiar from the Apple Finder.
If you want the new pages to be placed on top of the document, you must check the corresponding box in the settings.
Tip
You can also adjust the order of the pages manually by moving them with the left mouse button.
You can easily import content into PDFify from a file, clipboard or screenshot using the toolbar or Pages from the main menu. You can also use your iPhone, iPad or scanner to insert pages into PDFify.
Drag & drop from mails
You can drag and drop selected emails to PDFify - either directly onto the window or the dock icon. A PDF with A4 pages is created and the print dialog is conveniently skipped completely. Most email applications, including Apple Mail, MailMate, AirMail and Postbox are supported. Spark is not supported; there you have to make a workaround via the print dialog.
Drag & drop of webpages
Also web pages are automatically converted to paged PDF files. Drag the URL from your favorite browser on a PDFify window. URLs that are in the clipboard can also be easily pasted and the website is attached to the document.
Scan pages with PDFify
PDFify can be used as a scan target in various ways - from your iPhone or iPad via Continuity Camera, through a classic desktop scanner, all the way to document scanners such as the ScanSnap. The scanned pages land directly in your document and, if you wish, are run through text recognition.
Add from iPhone / iPad (Continuity Camera)
If you have an iPhone or iPad “within reach”, the options to take a photo, scan documents or add a drawing via the mobile device appear in the menu. PDFify delivers an optimal result by reducing the white border that otherwise appears with this option. The mobile device becomes a convenient document scanner.
You can findmore details at Apple.
Add from Desktop Scanners
PDFify provides you a comfortable scanner dialog. At the top you select your scanner from a drop-down menu - if only one device is available, it is connected automatically so you can get started right away.
The dialog starts compact and shows only the essentials: a short summary of how it will scan (resolution, color mode, and where applicable source and format), and a large Scan button that you can also trigger with the Return key. Via Details at the top right you expand the detailed view - the preview on the left, all settings on the right: source (Flatbed, Document Feeder or Transparency - depending on what your device offers), color mode, resolution and - if supported - duplex. The window resizes itself and remembers size and position for each view.
Via Preview you can create a test scan if needed and then define the area to scan. You can move the selection frame in the preview with the mouse and resize it using the handles. Alternatively, you can enter position and size precisely in millimeters (or inches depending on your region) or choose a paper format such as DIN A4 or US Letter as a template. The last selected area and the settings are remembered per scanner.
Each scan is processed immediately. Use the Append to current document checkbox to set the destination:
- When it is on, the scanned pages are appended to the currently open document. If you had a document open when you opened the scanner, the checkbox is already preselected so your scans land there directly.
- When it is off, each scan becomes a new document. A stack from the document feeder becomes a multi-page document, each individual flatbed scan its own. If no document is open, this happens automatically.
The scanned pages are run through text recognition.
Note
The new scanner dialog is available from macOS 14. On older systems the classic macOS scan interface is still shown. In the settings under General you can switch back to the classic dialog if needed (restart required).
Tip
The following have proven to be good default settings:
Type: Color or gray Resolution: 300dpi
Add from ScanSnap
Particularly good results can be achieved with a document scanner such as ScanSnap from the manufacturer FUJITSU.
The following video shows how to integrate the Receipts app directly into ScanSnap Home. For PDFify the steps are the same :
https://video.holtwick.de/w/3JzGiAN2bP6vHear9ZxcA5This video shows how to integrate Receipts app into the older ScanSnap Manager:
https://video.holtwick.de/w/fSKGmioN2GncPZP2vk4dWYWork with PDF
Apply OCR
Text recognition is automatically applied to images or PDF files that do not contain any text information. If text information is already present, the OCR button can be used to initiate recognition of the entire document.
If you open PDF files or add PDF pages to a document, it may already contain text information that you may want to keep. You therefore decide whether these pages should be OCR’d or not.
Technical Details
Why is text recognition not always started automatically? If a PDF file already contains text information, this can be changed by applying OCR to the text again. If you then copy this, for example, and paste it elsewhere, you will notice that the characters do not match their representation. As the algorithm cannot identify this 100%, the decision is up to you.
PDF/A Support
Many PDFify users keep electronic documents that they need to archive for the long term. PDF/A - Portable Document Format Archivable - enables standardized long-term archiving of documents. As of macOS 11, PDFify offers to save the document as PDF/A by default in the settings. However, this will not work if fonts that are not compatible with PDF/A were used in the source document!
Data loss
The saving options mentioned may remove information (e.g. embedded information such as links, graphics, audio and video files and optional encryption) from the PDF in order to meet the specifications. It is therefore recommended to check the result, as this could lead to data and quality losses.
Faster display of PDF on the web
Furthermore, you can now also select the linearized PDF, which is optimized for fast display on the Internet. The first page is then already displayed during the download, while the following pages are still being loaded.
Squeeze - Reduce file size
The size of a PDF file can be reduced in two ways: by adjusting the resolution and quality of the embedded images, or by completely converting each page into a bitmap. In the settings under Squeeze you define, for each predefined level, how compression is applied.
Compression levels (as a starting point):
- Original: The original data remains unchanged. Since many PDFs already contain compressed images, this can already be small enough.
- Low Compression: 250 dpi, 75% quality.
- Medium Compression: 175 dpi, 55% quality.
- Strong Compression: 110 dpi, 40% quality.
- Grayscale: 200 dpi. Converts each page into a grayscale image - saves space compared to color.
- Black & White: 300 dpi. Converts each page into a pure black & white image (with automatic threshold adjustment). Good for high-contrast text documents.
Note
The Grayscale and Black & White levels rasterize each page into an image. Any existing text (recognized via OCR or already contained) is preserved as an invisible layer above the image, so the document stays searchable and selectable. If you also want to keep the visible vector graphics and fonts unchanged, use Compress Images Only (see below).
Tip
The DPI value is the actual target resolution of the images. A 200 dpi scan stays unchanged at 200 dpi with the Low Compression level (250 dpi). If an image is already below the chosen value, it is not scaled up. For smaller files, choose a lower DPI level or a lower quality.
Tip
If you set the quality to 100% in the Compress Images Only mode, the embedded images are not re-compressed at all - the document is saved unchanged and stays razor-sharp. For smaller files, choose a quality below 100%.
Mode - defines how compression is applied:
- Compress images only (default): Only the images embedded in the PDF are re-compressed. Text, vector graphics and fonts remain unchanged - the document stays fully searchable and copyable. For most documents with a mix of text and images, this is the best choice.
- Rasterize pages (color): Each page is fully converted into a color image. Real text is lost in the process (turned into pixels). Useful for pure scans or when maximum size reduction is more important than text quality.
- Rasterize pages (grayscale): Like Rasterize pages (color), but in grayscale. Saves additional space when color is not needed anyway (classic scans, documents).
- Rasterize pages (black & white): Like Rasterize pages (color), but in true 1-bit black & white. Produces the smallest files, ideal for pure text scans.
Tip
After rasterizing, the text is only present as an image. If you want it to be searchable, apply text recognition afterwards.
Size protection - in the settings, each level has a Guard column:
- When the box is checked (default), a compression that would make the file larger is discarded and the original is kept instead. This way a document never grows larger from compression. This applies uniformly in the app as well as in the quick actions and shortcuts.
- When the box is unchecked, compression is always applied - even if the result turns out larger. Handy when, for example with Grayscale or Black & White, the conversion matters more to you than the pure file size.
Background
Some PDFs already contain heavily compressed images. Re-compressing them can then even enlarge rather than shrink them. Size protection catches exactly these cases.
Status bar
The current file size is shown in the center of the lower status bar. If the document is smaller than its original size (for example after compression), the saving is shown behind it as a percentage (for example “123 KB (-25%)”) - but only if something was actually saved. After applying compression, a notification additionally appears with the comparison to the previous size. If the open document is a PDF/A, the status bar also shows its level (for example “PDF/A-1b”) - so you see the format at a glance, without opening another program.
For the page currently shown, the status bar additionally displays its properties on the right: the position in the document (for example “1/5” for the first of five pages), the resolution (for example “150 DPI”), the size or the detected paper format (such as “DIN A4” or “US Letter” - small deviations of a few millimeters in scans are tolerated, otherwise the dimensions appear like “210 x 280 mm”) as well as the color mode (“Color”, “Grayscale” or “Black & White”). The values refer to the currently shown page and update after a compression - so you can check directly whether a squeeze delivered the desired result (such as the reduced resolution or a black & white conversion). During an ongoing operation this display is hidden, since the progress bar appears there instead.
Standardized maximum page size
PDFify allows you to limit the maximum page size so that you do not end up with unsightly huge pages. By default, the page size is set to DIN A4 with the update. In the settings, you can choose between the original size and several paper formats: DIN A4, DIN A3, DIN A5, US Letter, US Legal and Tabloid.
Sequence during import
Sometimes the individual pages of a document are available as separate image files. These are imported in the sort order familiar from the Apple Finder. This allows individual scans of pages to be quickly merged into one PDF document.
Undo / Redo
All operations done can also be undone or redone. Go to the main menu and choose Undo or Redo from the Edit menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts CMD + Z or CMD + SHIFT + Z as in any other good Mac application.
Delete and Rotate Pages
Directly in the PDF, the actions for deleting or rotating the page currently under the cursor can be selected in the context menu. After a short delay, a corresponding option appears in the thumbnail view.
Info
The rotation of a page has, in contrast to changes at the document, influence on the text recognition. Thus after a rotation an already accomplished text recognition is also rotated. However, if a new text recognition is performed, the current rotation is taken into account and text from top to bottom is recognized again.
Work faster with batch processing
As of macOS 11 this feature allows you to turn multiple documents “in a batch” at once into searchable PDF, PDF/A or to shrink their file size. The “Create Searchable PDF” and “Convert in PDF/A” features can be applied to images (PNG, JPG, etc.) in addition to PDF, but “squeeze” can only be applied to PDF.
You select several documents and apply a so-called “quick action”. The respective quick action creates a new file with the extension “.searchable.pdf”, “.pdf/a.pdf” or “.min.pdf” at the same location for each document. If you prefer to overwrite the original file, a corresponding check mark must be set under “Actions” after the “Quick Actions” settings described below.
You can execute these “Quick Actions” directly in the Finder:
- “Create Searchable PDF”
- “Convert in PDF/A”
- “Squeeze PDF”
Before the first “batch processing” the “Quick Actions” must be adjusted via the right mouse button…
… and selected accordingly.
The added “Quick Actions” are now displayed for selection in the Quick Actions as well as in the view below the PDF and can be applied in one step compared to the more cumbersome processing in the UI. The settings from the main app for Squeeze and OCR are carried over.
In the column view in the Finder:
Of course, the Quick Actions also work for individual documents.
Automate with Shortcuts, Spotlight and Siri
As of macOS 13, PDFify makes its most important actions available as App Shortcuts. This lets you process PDFs automatically - without opening PDFify first. You can find the actions in three places:
- in the Shortcuts app, where you assemble them into your own workflows,
- via Spotlight (CMD + Space) by typing the name of the action, and
- with Siri by speaking the command.
You can also open the Shortcuts app directly from the PDFify settings: in the Actions area under Shortcuts & Siri, click Open Shortcuts.
The following actions are available:
- Squeeze PDF - reduces the file size using the compression you set under Squeeze.
- Make PDF Searchable (OCR) - applies text recognition and returns a searchable PDF.
- Convert PDF to PDF/A - converts the document to the archival format PDF/A.
- Get PDF/A Status - reports the PDF/A level of a file (for example “PDF/A-1b”) or an empty result if it is not a PDF/A. Handy for checking a whole folder in a workflow or sorting files by format.
- Get Text from PDF - returns the plain text of the document, ideal for further processing in other shortcut steps.
- Export PDF Text Data as JSON - returns a structured JSON representation of the recognized content.
Each action takes a PDF file and returns the result, so you can chain several steps together - for example, first apply OCR, then squeeze, and finally save to a fixed location. The same settings as in the app are used (compression level, OCR languages, save options).
Tip
“Get Text from PDF” requires the document to contain text. For pure scans, add “Make PDF Searchable (OCR)” earlier in the same workflow.
Relationship to the quick actions
The quick actions in Finder and the App Shortcuts complement each other: quick actions are ideal for quickly batch-processing several files selected in Finder, the shortcuts for freely composable, repeatable workflows and voice control via Siri.
Processing with PDFify
Copy Text
Click on ‘Copy text’ to copy the entire plain text contained in the current PDF file.
Read
Reads the content of the PDF file to yourself using the default voice that you specified in the macOS settings. To stop reading aloud, click on the icon again.
Prints the current document.
Save as
Saves the current document at the selected location.
Share
Shares the document with other apps and services.
Export as text or JSON
Via the menu File → Export you can reuse the recognized content of the current document:
- Plain text - saves the entire text of the PDF as a
.txtfile. Handy for quickly processing content in other applications. - JSON - saves a structured representation of the document. Useful for your own scripts or importing into other tools.
Tip
For text to be exported, it must exist in the document. For pure scans, apply text recognition first.
Customize toolbar
Use the right mouse button to customize the toolbar according to your requirements.
Good to Know
Installation
There are 3 ways to install PDFify:
- Download from our homepage.
- Installation via App Store.
- Via command line via Homebrew:
brew install --cask pdfify(Same version as from the homepage).
Beta
Beta versions are available for PDFify from our homepage (not via the App Store), which offer an insight into the latest development. In the main menu, hold down the ALT key and select “Check for update…” to load the latest beta. Direct download is also possible via pdfify.app/latest-beta.
The easiest way is to enable the “Take part in the beta program” option in the settings under General. This gives you future beta versions automatically - and keeps you in the beta program even if you install a regular version in between. If you want to receive only regular versions again, simply uncheck the box. Using the “Check for Updates” button in the same place, you can look for a new version directly at any time.
Feedback on the new (and of course proven) features is welcome. See also “Future” for further opportunities to participate.
Privacy
All operations are happening locally on your end, which means that none of the content of your documents is sent to any server. We only connect to the Internet to load the language files, send crash reports or send support messages. Otherwise, we do not collect any data.
For details please find our Privacy Policy.
Support
There is a built-in support dialog in the app, powered by tisendo, that helps us to receive feedback from you more easily. When sending, your email address from your license is filled in automatically. If this documentation does not answer your questions, that’s the preferred way.
Lifetime License or Subscription
You can use the basic version of PDFify free of charge.
To be able to use all the functions of the app and remove the watermark in the finished PDF, you can purchase a lifetime license or take out an annual subscription via our website.
With your lifetime license or your subscription you support the further development of our app. Thank you very much!
Button zu https://pdfify.app/en/buy
Features
The future of the app can be shaped via GitHub. The support is also available at any time.