I want to scan typed documents to Word for Mac and change them. Which Adobe product is best for this? This is not my area of expertise. Thank you.

Question

Can someone tell me which Adobe product to use?  I'm compiling a manuscript of poems and short stories for a friend, which are typed and handwritten and I need to edit them.  Thank you.

Answer 1

Scanning to Word won't do what you want.
You see, a scan of a page is just like a photograph of it. You have photos of letters and stuff, but no actual letters. There is a special process called "optical character recognition" (OCR) which analyses the picture in detail, and decides - hey that pattern of dots looks like it might be a letter A - and that would could be an S... it is difficult and time consuming but if the original is clear then you can get a lot of text text with the need only for careful proof reading.
Check the software which came with the scanner first. It may well offer options for OCR. Yes, Adobe Acrobat Pro can do this, but you have unnecessary complication, because you'll then need to get the text out from Acrobat to begin the tedious process of typesetting each page. To be honest, you might find retyping everything the quickest and most reliable approach. If you aren't already experienced in dealing with long documents in Word you are in for a long haul. Back up a lot, so you don't lose everything due to a mistake.
(I'm assuming you don't want a "facsimile" - a warts-and-all exact copy of each original page, as typed and scribbled, with no changes at all - that would be a different story).