Thu 27 Aug 2009
How to convert scanned documents into text you can edit
Posted by Mysti under How-to articles , Popular posts
Do you have some printed text that you wish you could convert into an editable document on your computer without having to type the whole thing out? Optical character recognition software (OCR) allows you to covert image files of text into text you can edit on your computer.
OCR software isn’t 100% perfect but the more clear the image of the text the better the results you will get.
If you have a short one off document you would like to convert a good free online option would be OCR terminal. The OCR terminal site allows you to:
- Convert up to 20 pages of scanned or digitally photographed text for free (more than 20 pages will cost a fee)
- Convert multi-page TIFF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, or PDF formats
- Convert to doc, .txt, .rtf, or searchable .pdf formats
There are a few other free online OCR services available, but of the ones I tried OCR Terminal seemed to work the best. It converted a scanned page to plain text perfectly. To visit the OCR site click here. To see a video demonstration of how it works click here.
If you have a document longer than 20 pages or you will need to convert scanned documents on a regular bases then you may want to consider installing OCR software on your computer. Makeuseof.com currently has a great article on their website looking at five different options including: Microsoft OneNote 2007, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, SimpleOCR, TopOCR, and FreeOCR. To read this article click here.