Computers have revolutionized the way we handle text files. In the past, if you wanted to find a specific part in a book, you’d need to rely on an index. With an ebook, you can simply use the CTRL+F function and find it in seconds.
Have you ever found yourself wishing you had this kind of functionality on a non-digitized document? The great news is that it’s possible using optical character recognition technology (OCR).
This technology scans all kinds of documents and makes them into an editable PDF for your convenience. Here’s how OCR for PDF could help you and your business.
1. Editable PDFs
One of the big reasons for using OCR files is so that you can edit a PDF. You might have an important PDF file saved, only to realize there’s a mistake on it. If you don’t have the original copy, this could be a nightmare to fix.
On the other hand, using OCR data extraction with something like Azure OCR, you can get a PDF that you can edit like a conventional word file.
2. Translate Documents
If you have a document in a language you can’t understand, you could use an online service like Google Translate to translate it into English. The issue here is that you need to be able to highlight the text to copy it.
OCR gives you a PDF document with highlightable text. You can simply copy and paste the text into your translator of choice.
3. Find Things With CTRL and F
Have you ever found yourself reading a long physical document wishing you had CTRL and F functionality? With OCR, you can get it. Any kind of document with text can be scanned in and searched using CTRL and F. If you need to find a lot of specific information in a document, this could save you a considerable amount of time.
4. Record Keeping
OCR tools are a great way to digitize your records in a convenient format. For example, let’s say you want to keep records of the business copies of your receipts. You could scan them and apply OCR to them.
This makes the documents much more convenient to use than raw scans.
5. Refining the Document
Often, with scanned documents, there are imperfections that make reading the document distracting. OCR technology can recognize the text despite these issues and then present you with a perfect-looking document.
This is an excellent feature if you want to digitize some old physical files.
OCR for PDF Makes Life Easier
If you want to keep meticulous and easy to search records, you need to have a program capable of OCR. Once you’ve used OCR for PDF technology for a while, you won’t be able to imagine dealing with PDF files without it again.
If you want to learn more about some other technology-related topics, check out the rest of our blog posts.
