Software Converting A PDF To Readable PDF.

Any recommendations from members please?
Windows 7

Have 2 random suggestions from "ByteScout" worried about dodgy software.
Intend to make a "restore point" then load the software
Any other ways to be able to delete a bad program without having to re install? like a virtual HD. ?
Thanks

Rod,

Do you mean making it searchable? I use Adobe Acrobat for that. If it's a PDF I sent you, let me know and I'll fix it. If not, feel free to send to me and I can process it for you. I'm not familiar with other programs, but the search term to Google would be "OCR", or Optical Character Recognition. There are bound to be some free options out there.

Hi Postmaster.



Yes Sir,
we have a genuine purchased Catalogue of Australian Postmarks, which we would like to scan into a readable *.pdf to enhance the searching we do. (we can the search for part postmarks)

We shall try the free programs from "ByteScout" just worried about a possible re-install, It's been a couple of years since I have had a computer glitch, and that bad experience lingers.

I just recall now, I have an old banger Laptop in the attic, I may install it on there, for a test run.
If we get frustrated, I'll give a wave further on. Thanks Postmaster.

I use Sumatra, which is free and open source and even works back to Windows XP. PDFs are fast-loading. No problems ever. Also handles the rare ePub format item I come across.

Hi Rodney

I use a Freebie called PDFCreator:
https://pdfcreator.en.softonic.com/

It installs as a printer. Therefore, one selects PDFCreator as the current printer and "prints" any document, including PDF, to a PDF.

Also, I have made available a program called SplitPDF. This allows splitting a PDF into individual files or just extracting one or more pages.
https://app.box.com/s/2kaoaw0b6vuju...b23427xmi2fs

The BOX page displays an error, ignore the error and click download. Box doesn't like ZIP files. After download, locate the
BIN | RELEASE folder and make a desktop shortcut to SplitPDF.EXE.

Jerry B

Thanks gentlemen, appreciate your contriibutions.
Jerry, saved those links in our weblinks.

Apparently we have "touch down" this was in my mail box this morning.
I'll post any findings, when I do a road test.

Rod,
Just converted the file from a normal pdf to a searchable pdf with the program that I've got.
Wondershare PDFelement. Converted doc in about 20 sec. .
I have another on a thumb drive at work and will see if it converts later when I get back.
Will let you know how I get on.

Rod:

If memory serves, you use an Epson scanner. If you look at the the CD or DVD that came with it, you will probably find a programme called ABBYY which will convert your text scans into searchable documents.

Yes ABBYY can take a PDF and make it searchable.

Itma,



Thank you, I was aware of that, I think I tried it some time ago, however the package shipped with Epsom is a basic "trial" and will not do searchable, if I am not mistaken.

I'll have another go after your suggestion.

Rod:

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to do with this utility. Are you wanting it to do the searching or just the conversion to a text-based PDF so that it can be searched in Reader or Preview or a web browser. I would have thought (but this is not an area I have considered before) that any text-based PDF would be searchable in its own native environment.

ABBYY.com also has an on-line conversion service which is free for up to 5 pages per month. The full programme costs $US150 so that is considerably more in both $AU and $CA which are currently about par with each other. Serious money for a utility!!

Frank

Hi Frank,
I too am surprised you asked :)

Do you not have printed monographs that are hard copy only, and wish to save time searching for information?

I have oodlies of printed form I wish were searchable, Australian postmark
auction sales cry out for one instance
Searching hard copy for "lime Kilns" can take an age, a quick CTRL F
can do it in seconds.

I also have Stamp magazines from 1920 I wish to take advantage of.
The reasons are endless.

If I wish to quote an article found in an old magazine, I have to manually type, a quick scroll with the cursor does it in seconds.

Cheers

Sorry, I misunderstood the original question: you want a PDF reader that integrates OCR. I've tried out PDF-XChange Reader which has OCR. I don't have very many large PDFs stored away so didn't buy it. Review:
https://www.rlvision.com/blog/try-a...dobe-reader/
adware in the free version is truly obnoxious but the editor/pay version is reasonably priced. Says you can search across PDFs in a file (didn't try that), which sounds like what you would want.

Hi Rod:

I've just downloaded ABBYY FineReader and given it a whirl. Here is a screenshot of the result when opened as a PDF in Preview. You will see that the word "Edinburgh" (a small town next door to my home town of Musselburgh) is coloured yellow or green in three places after performing a search.



The image has been reduced by 50% to get it under SCF's 200kb limit. If you would like, I can email you the searchable ePDF file.

My first scan was at ABBYY's default 300dpi. It flagged that this was too low but it got about 99% of the text. The second scan worked perfectly at 600dpi. Admittedly, the type in SG catalogues is pretty small.

ABBYY connects directly to the scanner to get its scan and outputs the PDF file to storage. Thus you save a step by not having to take the scan using EpsonScan and then open ABBYY to convert the image to a text-based PDF. (ABBYY will also convert the image to a Word or Excel document.) I have an Apple computer and had some problems with the TWAIN connection between the scanner and the software. It worked fine, however, importing the image file and converting that. After I got the latest Epson drivers, it was the other way around - the scanner and software would talk to each other, but it won't accept a ready-made image as the input.

You can also input a number of scans to create a multi-page document.

It sounds like this is just what you are looking for but whether it is worth $US150 to you is another question. You can, of course, pick up a trial copy from abbyy.com so you can see for yourself. The trial copy will let you create 50 pages of the output document.

Hope this makes sense and is useful to you. SWMBO is ringing the dinner gong so I gotta go so no time to proof read.

Frank.

Thanks Frank,
this has become suddenly complex for me.

1. I have a Epson V200 scanner.
I scan a document (non readable) so I need a OCR program.
ABBYY comes packaged, but the process is like pulling teeth.
"Scan to PDF" is packaged, but has never worked, all the windows open
but when I press "finish" it goes into sleep mode. FAIL

2. I have documents already in PDF format, but are non readable
Programs like Adobe that offer OCR are expensive. FAIL.

3. I need to find a scanner that will scan to a readable PDF
(I believe Epson later models offer this option) POSSIBILITY

4. Yet to try.........Googles free pdf to readable software POSSIBILITY

https://www.cisdem.com/resource/how...gle-ocr.html

Rod,

I realize this isn't the solution you're looking for, but if you can't find an acceptable solution, I can send you a link to upload as many files as you want for me to OCR with Adobe. I can OCR files in bulk in a matter of minutes, so it's not an inconvenience.

Rod:

If getting a new scanner is a possibility, then don't, at least initially. Your V200 has TWAIN compatibility so it should work with ABBYY FineReader and it's purchase could be cheaper than a good quality scanner. I believe the secret of getting hardware and software from different manufacturers to work together is to ensure that the hardware drivers and related software are all up to date. This could even be the reason why you have trouble with the copy of the ABBYY utility that you now have.

Frank.