OCR // Convert PDF to Word - Suggestions Please

The Coffee Shop
1

I want to convert a few Court Briefs, in pdf form, into Word doccuments that can then be edited. I have been informed I seek OCR - Optical Character Recognition - software.

So, what program works the best or at least actually works? I have ready access to both a PC and Mac.

Thanks.

David K

(Slowtwitch has helped me buy a car (Honda Accord), a bike (Cervelo P3 Sl), etc…)

2

Are they long? you could easily go from PDF to TIFF to Word through MS Document Imaging (within MS office Tools). Or Adobe Acrobat (not reader) would let you select the text or just save as RTF which can be read into word.

If its a scan its a PITA, if not its pretty easy.

3

Were the PDF files converted from word, or are they scans? Easiest way to tell is to open up the PDF and see if you can highlight text. If you can highlight text, you could copy and paste the text into a word document. If you are lucky, you might not lose much formatting. Or, if you have Adobe writer, you should be able to convert it back to word.

If its a scanned image, I can’t help. Sorry.

4

Do they have alot of pictures or just text? Can’t you just “Copy” and “Paste”. I just opened a .PDF file and did it to a small part, not sure what the effect would be or how hard it would be to do to a very large document.

I just did it to a big file and indeed none of the picks come across and “Tables” and such come out screwed up. But all the text is fine.

What about getting a PDF editor?

I think any OCR is going to have a hard time with tables, pictures etc, but I’d guess some higher end stuff would do it.

~Matt

5

All:

Thanks. It appears to be from a scan. I was able to convert one brief to text (txt) format. I will keep messing with it to see if I can eventually get into Word.

David K

6

All:

Thanks. It appears to be from a scan. I was able to convert one brief to text (txt) format. I will keep messing with it to see if I can eventually get into Word.

David K
Check out ghostview/ghostgum. Open source PDF converters.

John

7

You might be able to use google docs to do this. They seem to have an auto convert among word, excel, PDF, etc. Not sure how well it might work, but certainly worth a shot.