free/inexpensive OCR software to convert pdf to searchable pdf or doc?

geepondy · Feb 23, 2010

I'm not sure where on the internet to ask this so I'll throw it out to the cafe. I have a scanned pdf file. Any free or inexpensive OCR software to read the file and convert it to either searchable pdf or doc file? Abbyy FineReader seems to be the holy grail but it's also $300. I found one free one "simple OCR" but it only reads image files, not .pdf's.

herulach · Feb 23, 2010

The newer versions of office (2003 on IIRC) include a pretty decent OCR package.

It will only import mdi or tiff files, but you can easily sort that by printing the pdf using the MS image writer driver.

PM me if you want me if you haven't the software and want me to have a stab at it.

LuxLuthor · Feb 23, 2010

Nuance PDF Converter Pro 6.0 has a free trial, then $100 if you like it.

I doubt you are going to find a quality OCR converter for free.

gswitter · Feb 23, 2010

Isn't there a Google OCR package?

burgessdi · Feb 23, 2010

gswitter said:
Isn't there a Google OCR package?

Yup!! There's http://docs.google.com/

tiktok 22 · Feb 23, 2010

This might do the trick. It's a PDF to word converter. It has worked fine for me. Just click on get keycode and they will send it to your e-mail. simple.

LuxLuthor · Feb 23, 2010

There are tons of free programs that convert to/from PDF/Word, including google.

However, OP is asking about OCR specifically. I don't see where google does OCR conversion, but didn't read all their details.

gswitter · Feb 23, 2010

From a little searching... If you put the .pdf on a web server, and add a link to it to a publicly-available web page, the Google bots will OCR it automatically.

I'd assume Google has poured a fair amount of resources into OCR, since they've now digitized and OCR'ed nearly every book ever written.

LuxLuthor · Feb 23, 2010

gswitter said:
From a little searching... If you put the .pdf on a web server, and add a link to it to a publicly-available web page, the Google bots will OCR it automatically.

I'd assume Google has poured a fair amount of resources into OCR, since they've now digitized and OCR'ed nearly every book ever written.

Good follow up, and knowing they did that with books meant they had the technology, but I didn't see it mentioned or built into the Google Docs application as a feature. Interesting way around what appears to be a missing feature. I imagine there is a reason they don't include it outright.

free/inexpensive OCR software to convert pdf to searchable pdf or doc?

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