Software for editing printed documents
Thread poster: Ana P. Gutierrez
Ana P. Gutierrez
Ana P. Gutierrez  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:17
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Jul 10, 2007

If a client gives me a printed document (not electronically available), is the best software to scan it into and edit it Adobe Acrobat?

If so, I currently only have Adobe Reader, so I have I would have to buy the full version?

Any advice would help.
thanks

[Edited at 2007-07-10 03:45]


 
Claudia Alvis
Claudia Alvis  Identity Verified
Peru
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Spanish
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ABBYY FineReader Jul 10, 2007

It handles layouts much better than Acrobat. The trial version works for a full month I believe.

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 06:17
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English to Afrikaans
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Two answers to two questions Jul 10, 2007

Ana Gutierrez wrote:
If a client gives me a printed document (not electronically available), is the best software to scan it into and edit it Adobe Acrobat?


There are many OCR programs available, and the good ones are all expensive. The expensive ones are usually all good.

Does the client expect you to edit the files in Adobe Acrobat? I'm asking because it isn't really natural to edit a text file in Acrobat. The OCR program would probably convert the file to MS Word or some similar word processing format, and you'd be editing the file in that word processor.

If so, I currently only have Adobe Reader, so I have I would have to buy the full version?


The reader is simply a reader. You can grab text from it, but you can't edit anything in it. For editing PDFs, you'd need the full version.


 
veratek
veratek
Brazil
Local time: 02:17
French to English
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OCR programs Jul 10, 2007

"There are many OCR programs available, and the good ones are all expensive. The expensive ones are usually all good."

I disagree about the "good ones are all expensive." I haven't had to do a lot of OCR scanning, but in my limited experience, good consumer scanners all come with a good OCR software, that is, "good" meaning established brands like EPSON etc released in the last 2 years.

For example, I have had quite good results scanning very tiny text displayed in intr
... See more
"There are many OCR programs available, and the good ones are all expensive. The expensive ones are usually all good."

I disagree about the "good ones are all expensive." I haven't had to do a lot of OCR scanning, but in my limited experience, good consumer scanners all come with a good OCR software, that is, "good" meaning established brands like EPSON etc released in the last 2 years.

For example, I have had quite good results scanning very tiny text displayed in intricate tables on a page using such software.

The main variables are a) the size of text, b) the visual quality of the printed page, c) the layout. (The rest depends on your scanner, software, and settings).

There are also scanning/printing services that will scan docs for you (this might be something to consider if the number of pages is large).

There are also free programs that will convert PDF to text. In my experience, they make as many mistakes as the OCR ones.
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Charlotte Blank
Charlotte Blank  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 06:17
Czech to German
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Try ebay Jul 10, 2007

Samuel Murray wrote:
There are many OCR programs available, and the good ones are all expensive.


Hi Ana,

if you don't want to buy an expensive program just for rare occasions you might have a look at ebay. I got ABBYY Fine Reader there at a very reasonable price - not the latest version, of course, but it's working fairly well and I can only recommend it. You will have to check and "adjust" the result with ABBYY too but maybe other programs will have more difficulties when it comes to bad scans.

Acrobat should be on ebay as well but for your job it seems not to be the best program (in fact, I really don't know which job has to be done exclusively with Acrobat besides making pdf - but that's another story...).

Good luck!

Charlotte


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 06:17
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Bundled OCR programs Jul 10, 2007

vera-tech wrote:
Good consumer scanners all come with a good OCR software.


True. Sometimes the bundled scanner is a limited version, however. My own scanner came with ABBYY Fine Reader Sprint, which is a toned down version of Fine Reader. It scans just as good as the full version does, but doesn't contain some of the more complex features (such as font recognition, block selection and smart column handling).


 
Ana P. Gutierrez
Ana P. Gutierrez  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:17
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
ABBYY FineReader Jul 10, 2007

Claudia Alvis wrote:

It handles layouts much better than Acrobat. The trial version works for a full month I believe.


Claudia:
Thank you so much for your input. Since several people here use "ABBYY FineReader" I'm thinking about getting this one.
(Anything to make things easier...)
(:


 
Ana P. Gutierrez
Ana P. Gutierrez  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:17
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for your advice Jul 10, 2007

vera-tech wrote:

There are also scanning/printing services that will scan docs for you (this might be something to consider if the number of pages is large).



Thank you so much for this piece of information. I had not idea such service was available. I'll look into it to make sure I know what local resources I have that could do that for me when/if I need it.
(:


 
Ana P. Gutierrez
Ana P. Gutierrez  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:17
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Best OCR program Jul 10, 2007

Samuel Murray wrote:

Does the client expect you to edit the files in Adobe Acrobat? I'm asking because it isn't really natural to edit a text file in Acrobat. The OCR program would probably convert the file to MS Word or some similar word processing format, and you'd be editing the file in that word processor.


The client hasn't requested this, but frankly since I've never had to work off a printed doc, and due to my little computer knowledge, I thought I would have to edit in Adobe or a program of some sort.
Reading your comment about convertir to Word is such a relief, I didn't know that's how it worked. I love it!

Thank you Samuel.


 


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