# OCR on pdf documents (and others...)

**URL:** <https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788>\
**Category:** Tips\
**Created:** [September 21, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788 "2011-09-21T15:03:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/gsaintyves)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/1 "2011-09-21T15:03:10Z")

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HI  
New to DTPro Office, so, maybe a basic question:

I import emails from Outlook into DTPO, and most of these emails have documents attached. (mainly pdf, but also docx, xls, jpeg, dwg,…)

I need to un-attach these documents for classification, and I would like to have OCR on these attachments.

How can I achieve that ?

Thanks  
Gilles

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**Author:** ![Bill\_DeVille](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/bill_deville/32/18_2.png) [@Bill\_DeVille](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/Bill_DeVille)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/2 "2011-09-21T15:39:45Z")

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Click on the Alternative Text button in the navigation bar above the document display pane, to switch to a rich text view of the message. In this view you can open attachments under their parent application, and/or add the attachment to a database.

OCR would be needed only for image-only (non searchable) PDFs.

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**Author:** ![gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/gsaintyves)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/3 "2011-09-21T16:13:25Z")

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Thanks Bill.  
But, if I have a “pdf only” document in DTPO and I want to transform it in a “pdf + text” document, what is the easy way to do ?

At the moment, I export the “pdf” on the desktop and import “pdf+text” back with OCR…  
It’s a little time consuming…

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**Author:** ![korm](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@korm](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/korm)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/4 "2011-09-21T16:40:35Z")

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Select the document(s) (multiple selections are permitted). Use Data \> Convert \> to Searchable PDF, or control-click and select the same command from the contextual menu.

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**Author:** ![gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@gsaintyves](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/gsaintyves)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/5 "2011-09-21T17:17:11Z")

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Great !  
Thanks !

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**Author:** ![system](https://devontech-discourse.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/uploads/original/2X/4/4e6ff70c96be2eb307a274d890bba8d71ba671b3.png) [@system](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2022, 11:13am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/ocr-on-pdf-documents-and-others/12788/6 "2022-01-21T11:13:46Z")

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