Convert to searchable PDF -- doesn't work if text present

In an earlier post http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10511

I don’t see this with DTPO 2.0.2. What I see is that any document that already has text cannot be OCR’d. I tried two documents, one was a scanned document that had already been converted to searchable text by DTPO. The other was a document available on the web in which the first page is “normal” (unscanned) text, and the other pages are bitmaps with no text behind them.

In both cases, the menu item Data:Convert…to Searchable PDF was active, but selecting it seemed to do nothing. If you want to confirm, try downloading this document https://www.sdnhm.org/research/reprints/28.pdf and see if you can OCR it in DTPO.

Thanks for any advice.

A

I captured the PDF for which you supplied a link, and had no problem converting it entirely to searchable PDF using Data > Convert > to searchable PDF.

All I can say is “huh!” Is there something I am missing?

I am including a screen shot, but all I do is put the pdf in the inbox of a database, click on it to select it, and choose “Data:Convert>to Searchable PDF”. I then open the OCR Activity Window to see if anything is happening, and the window is blank.

What I see is that if I take a scanned document that I have already OCR’d in DevonThink, open it in Acrobat, delete hidden text (in the metadata), then I can OCR it in DTPO. Otherwise I can’t.

What could be the difference between Bill’s and my setup? (I really don’t want to reinstall, but I could).

We both have Acrobat on our computers.

I always delete Adobe’s PDF viewer plugin, as it’s not necessary, and I don’t trust it.

Hi Bill,

I didn’t think that Adobe’s PDF Viewer plugin was the problem, and no changes were noted. (I did delete it, though I am agnostic about whether I trust it).

I am afraid that there may be something wrong with the plugins in Scripting Additions.

Any idea what this means?

6/9/10 7:58:20 DEVONthink Pro[4705] Initializer-based scripting additions have been deprecated. Please update this addition: “/Users/alan/Library/ScriptingAdditions/MacPackToolbox.osax”

I think I use MacPackToolbox for a bunch of functions in a custom FileMaker database–but the ecology of AppleScript Scripting Additions is complicated, and I never remember what I have, where it came from, or what the implications of deleting it are. In fact, the ecology of plugins of any sort is really complicated. The author of MacPackToolbox is, of course, out of business.