A better way to Convert to Searchable PDF?

DEVONthink Tips
1

I’m perfecting happy with Devnothink’s Convert to… Searchable PDF - I’m not knocking it at all! But sometimes I feel that the quality could be improved a bit, especially where finding and selecting text is concerned.

Is there another process or suggested app to use that users could suggest to better improver the conversation of a PDF to a Searchable PDF?

Thanks very much!

2

I’m not sure how this relates to the conversion process.

3

I just mean to say that Devonthink certainly does convert PDF to Searchable PDFs, but sometimes I find that there are sometimes somewhat incomplete conversions to searchable PDFs (i.e., the text and / or fields for text have been unevenly converted in certain places, making selecting or finding text in newly searchable PDFs a bit clunky at times).

As I said, I was just wondering if there might be a way to better optimize conversions to searchable PDFs - within Devonthink or by using another app.

Again, it’s not at all a knock on Devonthink - I’m very appreciative of that tool! Just wondering if there’s anything else I can do to make these conversions to Searchable PDFs even better. Thanks!

4

The quality of an OCRd PDF is directly related to the quality of the original scan. Scanned photographs of medieval books aren’t usually going to turn out well. Scans of crisp printouts from a modern laser printer will turn out well. Also, if your scanner doesn’t deskew images well, or the skew is bad and cannot be fixed by the scanner, then OCR will be hindered. If areas of the scanned document have blemishes – or even the stray piece of lint – then OCR will be hindered. It’s also advisable to maintain your scanner and clean it according to manufacturer instructions.

DEVONthink’s OCR depends on ABBYY technology for now – it’s going to be as good as ABBYY can do. The person to speak to about quality is at ABBYY.

If you want to compare OCR quality you cannot go by reviews or anyone’s opinion. You have to test OCR on documents you have and you scan because it’s the quality of your stuff that matters, not someone’s guesses. There are lots of OCR products on the market – they almost all have free trials. It takes a few hours to run a trial before investing.

5

Ok, great. Thank you very much for answering my question! Appreciate your help…