AdobeAcrobatPro: Downloaded pdf's are much smaller than scanned ones. How to get scanned ones to be fewer px and not lose quality?

Question

I have several accounts which post .pdf's to be downloaded. These are good quality and are small (kb) files.
I find when I scan paper documents, they have huge pixelation... and as I make them smaller, they lose readability.
I've tried to scan at 72px-300px. I've tried to save as .jpg which was then added to a .docx. I've tried to simply save as .pdf all from photoshop.
Is there a way to get the quality of a downloaded .pdf document and it's low pixelation when starting from a paper document which must be scanned?
I have a Canon CanoScan Lide 100. and I'm using Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 as well as Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Answer 1

Generally, if you want best quality you don't start with a scan. It's just a HUGE picture.
But you can try the "text recognition" feature of Acrobat ("OCR"). Be sure to experiment with the settings, they have huge effects on the result.
For OCR to work you need good quality scans of good quality originals using common fonts in an expected way (e.g. a page from a magazine).