As the awareness of creating a paperless office increases among more and more people, scanned documents (basically scanned PDF files and images) have become a great part of our paper work in the office. Yet, very often, we need to edit a scanned document to make changes. Here are multiple solutions to edit a scanned PDF or image document on macOS and Windows, respectively.
Cisdem PDFMaster
Free Download macOS 11 or later 
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
With companies or individuals who are looking for PDF solutions, it’s vital and time-saving to consider the best software available. Through this part, learn how to edit scanned documents with the best software on Mac/Windows. Let’s get started!
Cisdem PDFMaster, a dedicated PDF editor with OCR capability, to convert native, scanned PDF and images to 10+ formats, while maintaining the original file quality (layout, format, image quality, etc.). Differing from those PDF editors, Cisdem PDFMaster can make scanned documents editable in batch and in abundant output formats.
Even, it allows users to create PDF from other files, customize the PDF size & quality as needed, edit text in PDF, add annotations to text, add password to PDF, unlock the forgotten password, etc.
Download and install Cisdem PDFMaster on your Windows or Mac.
Free Download macOS 11 or later Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
Earlier than macOS 11, click here
Find Convert PDF feature in Quick Tools, click it and upload a scanned document. 
Click Add Files or drag-n-drop to import more scanned PDF files. Choose the output format as Word, Text or any other editable formats, and enable the OCR functionality.
For more accurate conversion results, click on one imported PDF and click Settings.
In the new window, you can decide to retain flowing text or page layout after conversion. Also, select the page range you want to recognize.
When you finished, click on the Convert button to process files at one time.
Note: If you only need to process a single scanned document, you can also go to Open Files > OCR and start conversion.
A PDF editor seems to be the only solution to this issue. But in fact, most users finally choose to edit the scanned PDF or image document without paying for a PDF editor that is priced quite high. The easiest way to edit a scanned PDF or image document, for many users, is exporting the scanned file as an editable format, then editing the file in its corresponding document editor.
So if you don’t have a PDF editor, or don’t want to invest too much money on editing a scanned document, you can wisely make use of PDF converters to make scanned documents editable for further modifications.
UPDF is a powerful PDF tool exclusively available to work with PDFs professionally. To edit a scanned PDF with this program, you just need to enable OCR feature and export PDF as editable format for easy editing.
It also reduces the complexity of PDF edits and gives a better space to customize the PDFs according to your needs. UPDF allows users to perform a wide range of operations on PDFs. You can edit, read, annotate, convert, organize and OCR PDFs with UPDF based on your requirements.
Here we recommend another PDF editor to edit a scanned document on Mac and Windows, Able2Extract Professional 17 (price at $149.95). Accurately extracting image-only PDFs into editable and searchable text is an easy task for the OCR engine in Able2Extract. Another benefit is it enables to convert the poorest quality scans and correct skewed content and layout.
It is an all-in-one PDF editor, allowing users to convert native and scanned to Word, Excel, CSV, AutoCAD, etc, to annotate, to redact PDF and edit PDF content.
tips: If you want to increase your work productivity, you can perform the Batch Conversion tool under the Convert tab. Batch convert scanned PDF documents also works, but only as images.
There are also several PDF converters for Windows, and here we recommend Tipard PDF Converter Platinum, a comprehensive PDF conversion tool to convert native and scanned PDF into Excel, Word, Text, ePub, Image, etc.
As we all know, nearly all scanned documents are saved in PDF format because of its capability to retain and present original file elements, to be easily accessed on different platforms as well. If you are working with PDF on a regular basis, you probably want to have a PDF editor installed. And most PDF editors build in OCR features to edit a scanned PDF document directly. Here we recommend best PDF editors for you.
When talking about PDF editor, is that Adobe product the one first comes to your head? Then, you can absolutely edit a scanned document on Mac or Windows with Acobat Pro. Here we use subscribed Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (price at $24.99/month or 179.88/year), the latest Adobe Acrobat version to demonstrate how to edit a scanned document.
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Powered by Al-based OCR technology, ABBYY FineReader PDF ($19/month or $117/year) allows users to digitize paper documents and scans with high accuracy and excellent speed. Furthermore, users can create, edit, search, make comments, extract text from PDF, recognize text in PDF, convert MS Office such as PPT to PDF, compare documents and more.
There’s a handy assistant for users who have downloaded the word processing software — Microsoft Word. Although as a part of MS Office suite, Microsoft Word can also be used if you get the license of Microsoft 365. Do not think it is just an ordinary text processor, in fact, it can also achieve a variety of format conversions.
tips: Only Microsoft Word 2013 or later can edit scanned PDF documents. After conversion, the layout of the text and pages may be damaged, so the layout will not be as perfect as the original text. Users can only adjust the position of the text in the file manually.
If you don’t work on scanned documents that often, you can use online free OCR software to save money. The principle of using online free service is similar to that of PDF converter, do OCR on the scanned document to make them editable. The biggest benefit of using online service is that you can utilize this method both on MacOS and Windows.
Here we recommended OnlineOCR, a platform enabling users to make scanned PDF and image documents in editable Word, Excel, Text format. It is simple to use and preserves the original PDF formatting well.
Attention:
Some applications cost a lot, still get limited output formats, while online OCR service may get you nowhere because of unstable conversion quality. However, Cisdem PDFMaster for Mac and Windows will enable scanned documents to be different editable formats, and you can edit a scanned document as you want to.
Bianca is a senior tech editor and strategist at Cisdem with Over 10 years of experience on PDF related solutions which covers all document editing, annotating, converting and managing etc.
Eloise
Useful post! I'm struggling and looking for a way to edit my scanned files. And I find it's easy to turn scanned files to Word format, thanks a lot.