Text recognition technology (mostly OCR – Optical Character Recognition) saves a lot of time. Thanks to it, we can quickly convert graphic files containing text into an editable form. This is particularly useful in companies that process many paper documents.
OCR software is usually quite expensive. If we occasionally need to read text from graphic files, we can use the free Google Drive. The built-in OCR function is easy to use and works very efficiently.
How does Optical Character Recognition work?
Optical character recognition works by scanning an image for features that resemble the character sets on which it was trained.
It’s common for colleagues to email PDF files or documents where changes need to be made, the file isn’t copied, or it’s an image. Sometimes it happens that you need to scan a document and quickly find a piece of text in it, but you don’t have time to re-read the entire document, especially if it is a large report, and you need to find specific numbers.
For PDF files, we use the SwifDoo PDF, which does a great job of parsing characters in a PDF file in microseconds. The SwifDoo PDF program is a state-of-the-art and scans images to produce text-like features.
And that’s where SwifDoo PDF OCR facility comes into play. You will learn how to convert an unrecognized PDF document to a regular PDF file. Thanks to the built-in digital text recognition technology, or OCR, it will help you cope with the problem and find the text you need.
The Benefits of OCR technology
Optical character recognition – OCR technology – brings a number of benefits, some of which are:
Increase the speed of the process: By quickly transforming unstructured data into machine-readable and searchable information, this technology helps increase the speed of business processes.
Increases accuracy: The risk of human error is eliminated, improving the overall accuracy of character recognition.
Reduces processing costs: Optical character recognition software is not completely dependent on other technologies, which reduces processing costs.
Increases productivity: Because information is easily accessible and searchable, employees have more time to complete productive tasks and achieve goals.
Improves customer satisfaction: Having information available in an easily searchable format ensures higher levels of satisfaction and better customer service.
In practice, users teach the algorithm new patterns of letters or syllables. Thanks to millions of text samples recognized in this way, the algorithm’s skills are constantly improving, and OCR technology is becoming more and more perfect.
How to OCR a PDF with SwifDoo PDF
First, you need to open the PDF file in SwifDoo PDF, then select “OCR” in the Home toolbar and check “Recognize Document“.
In the options menu, you can select the language of the text file, or the Output path as well as the Page Range to be recognized. Specifically, you can also choose where not to perform the OCR practices. And lastly, simply hitting the “Apply” button.
Processing speed depends on file size and may take some time to recognize all characters. When you’re ready, you can select and copy the text, then search the file. Press Ctrl + F to search for text. The file can then be saved as a PDF file for editing.
It is important to know that SwifDoo PDF provides a 15-day free trial that allows you to view and convert PDF files with no hassle. It also allows you to create and edit PDF files.
The OCR facility is integrated as part of the SwifDoo PDF pro program, which allows you to rely on no separate digital text recognition tools. But the OCR solution is only available for its Windows version at this time.
In closing
Editing text in a PDF file includes a wide range of changes during the conversion itself. It is then possible to define the expected appearance and properties of the document, for example formatting the text and using one font. Editing in PDF also allows you to preserve the original font sizes and types, and leave images and paragraphs unchanged.
In such a full-featured program such as SwifDoo PDF, you can then add or remove information, further change the formatting and adjust the appearance and content of the document to your needs. In a similar way, you can also edit several files, then combine them and save them in the selected format.
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