EpubCCWhat is a scanned PDF?
Updated:
A scanned PDF holds photographs of paper pages, so each page is an image with no text layer unless OCR was run on it. It looks like text but a computer sees only pixels.
Why it matters when you convert a PDF to EPUB
Without text, there is nothing to re-flow: a scanned PDF needs OCR before it can become a reflowable EPUB, and the EPUB is only as good as the OCR. EpubCC does not offer OCR yet; it is planned as a separate route.
How EpubCC handles it: the engine detects pages that are only a full-page image and reports them as scanned in the quality report. It does not decode or recognise those images, because OCR is a later, separate route, so the free sample of a fully scanned PDF shows little or no text, which is the honest result. A scan that already has a hidden OCR text layer is read from that layer like any other PDF text, its recognition errors included.
Related terms
See which PDFs convert well
Convert up to 5 pages free, no account needed.