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How to make images searchable with OneNote?

Michael Haft 20 Reputation points
2025-11-12T19:37:09.7733333+00:00

Hi everyone,

I’m using Microsoft OneNote on my MacBook and had a question about the search function. I frequently import images and PDFs (including PowerPoint slide screenshots and other presentation materials) into my notebooks for work, and it would be extremely helpful if I could use the search bar to find text within those embedded images/PDFs.

Does OneNote for Mac support OCR for searching text inside images or imported PDFs? If so, are there any settings I should enable? If not, is this functionality only available on other platforms (such as Windows)? Additionally, does the online version of OneNote support OCR even if the Mac app does not?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For education | MacOS
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  1. Jade-T 8,680 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-11-13T02:54:13.7633333+00:00

    Hi @Michael Haft

    Thank you for posting your question in the Q&A Forum.

    I completely understand why being able to search text within your images and PDFs is important for your workflow and for efficiently managing your presentation materials. 

    Here’s some information regarding OCR (Optical Character Recognition) across OneNote platforms: 

    • OneNote for Mac: Based on current observations and user experience, the Mac app primarily functions as an editing interface. Consequently, there are no settings or toggles visible to initiate this search process on Mac. However, you can still manually extract text using the Copy Text from Picture option. You can find more details on this here: Copy text from inserted pictures in OneNote for Mac - Microsoft Support. Please note that this is different from the full searchable OCR available on Windows. 
    • OneNote for Windows (Desktop): This version is generally observed as the platform that successfully manages the full OCR processing. Images and PDFs processed here typically have their text indexed and made searchable. 
    • OneNote for the Web & Mobile (iOS/Android): Based on Microsoft’s documentation, image OCR functionality is available in the OneNote desktop app. Consequently, text in images or PDFs may not be searchable on the Web or mobile apps if it hasn’t been processed on Windows. 

    If having searchable text is necessary for your documents, the most reliable method appears to be to insert and process your images or PDFs first on a Windows desktop application. Once indexed, the text is typically found to be searchable across all your devices. 

    We appreciate your inquiry and hope this explanation of the processing flow helps you manage your notes effectively. 

    Please let me know if you have any further questions. 

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".    

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

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  1. Q&A Assist
    2025-11-12T19:37:16.6933333+00:00
    AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn more

    OneNote for Mac does not support optical character recognition (OCR) for searching text within images or imported PDFs. The OCR functionality, which translates images of text into actual text characters, is only available in the OneNote desktop app for Windows. Therefore, if you are using OneNote on your MacBook, you will not be able to search for text within embedded images or PDFs directly.

    References:

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