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This is a post I wrote for our work blog. The original post can be found here: http://etcpanel.princeton.edu/blog/blog/2011/12/14/how-to-ocr-a-pdf-that-is-larger-than-45-inches/

Adobe Acrobat has a size limit on PDFs you can OCR. If you try to OCR a file that has dimensions larger than 45 inches, you will receive an error. We recently did a work around using Acrobat and Photoshop. This work around is fine if you have 10 pages, but for larger documents, this work around may be time consuming. Here are the steps:

1. Open the PDF in Acrobat.
2. Save as an EPS file (Encapsulated Post Script)
3. Open the EPS file in Photoshop, when prompted, change the largest dimension to 45 inches.
4. Save the file as a TIFF file in Photoshop.
5. Open the TIFF file in Acrobat (you can drag and drop the file into Acrobat).
6. When prompted, say you would like the TIFF image OCRed by Acrobat.
7. You will have a PDF that is OCRed in Acrobat. Save your new PDF.

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