Scanned files are one of the biggest reasons PDF-to-Anki workflows fail. Good OCR setup fixes that and gives you cleaner card output.
Step 1: Prepare the scan
Use at least 300 DPI scans, straighten tilted pages, and crop extra margins. This improves OCR confidence.
Step 2: Run OCR first
Convert image-only pages into searchable text before card generation. Check random pages to confirm text is readable.
Step 3: Clean extraction noise
- Fix broken hyphenated words
- Remove repeated headers and footers
- Delete irrelevant figure captions
Step 4: Generate cards in batches
Process 10 to 20 pages at a time. Smaller batches reduce error spread and improve review speed.
Warning: Never import large OCR-generated decks without sampling and editing. One bad extraction can create hundreds of weak cards.
Step 5: Validate before Anki import
Review question clarity, answer correctness, and one-concept-per-card formatting.
After OCR cleanup, run your file through PDF to Anki Converter for faster output.