(SharePoint Online) + Flow = (Salt+Pepper)

Search Contents of a PDF File in SharePoint Online, Make them Searchable Using Microsoft Flow

We all get stuck somewhere in our so-called “Programmer Life” for a small requirement. And I was stuck with such a requirement that the content of the PDF file uploaded to my SharePoint online is not searchable, however, the PDF I created manually from the Word document works fine.

Sample OCR Flow

Introduction

We all get stuck somewhere in our so-called “Programmer Life” for a small requirement. And I was stuck with such a requirement that the content of the PDF file uploaded to my SharePoint online is not searchable, however, the PDF I created manually from the Word document works fine. Let me tell you why!. Typically there are 3 kinds of PDF files.

1. Normal PDF: These are the files that you get from applications like Microsoft Word, Adobe tools, etc. The beauty of this file is that the content of this file can be searched, you can select the text in this file, style them and copy-paste, etc.
2. Scanned PDF: This one is exactly opposite to the first one, and this was Villain in my requirement. The issue with this type is that though the content looks visually the same, it can not be searchable, select, copy-paste, etc, as in the…