# Merge Scanned PDFs with Text PDFs (OCR Considerations)
Last week, someone reached out with a problem that's more common than you might think. They had a contract: three pages were native digital PDFs (text-based, created in Word), and five pages were scanned documents (image-based, from a copier).
When they merged everything together, the file was huge—38MB for just eight pages. Worse, they couldn't search for specific terms in the scanned sections. The whole document felt clunky and unprofessional.
This is the hidden challenge of mixing scanned PDFs with regular text PDFs. They look similar on screen, but underneath they're fundamentally different. And if you don't handle them correctly, you end up with massive files, unsearchable documents, and quality issues.
In this guide, I'll show you exactly how to merge scanned and text-based PDFs the right way. We'll cover OCR (Optical Character Recognition), file size optimization, maintaining quality, and making everything searchable.
Understanding the Two Types of PDFs
Before we fix the problem, let's understand what we're dealing with.
Text-Based PDFs (Native Digital PDFs)
These PDFs are created directly from digital sources:
Created from:
- Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Excel
- Adobe InDesign, Illustrator
- Web pages saved as PDF
- Emails exported to PDF
- Code-generated reports
Characteristics:
- Text is actual text (selectable, searchable, copyable)
- Small file sizes (usually 50KB - 2MB)
- Crystal clear at any zoom level
- Accessible to screen readers
- Easy to edit (with the right tools)
How to identify: Try selecting text with your cursor. If you can highlight individual words, it's text-based.
Scanned PDFs (Image-Based PDFs)
These PDFs are essentially photographs of documents:
Created from:
- Desktop scanners
- Mobile scanning apps (CamScanner, Adobe Scan, etc.)
- Office copiers/printers with scan function
- Photos of documents
Characteristics:
- Each page is an image (JPEG, TIFF, or PNG embedded in PDF)
- Large file sizes (often 1-10MB per page)