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trouble converting pdf to word document with ocr

Aug 16, 2012 6:48 AM

Categories: Bug / Error, Question / Need Help Tags: #problem #ocr #convert_to_word #pdf_to_word #convert_to_.docx

I just tried converting a pdf to a word document. I've done this successfully before. I checked the box indicating I wanted character recognition in English. The conversion I received was only a picture of the pdf file. No OCR. What's wrong?

1073 Views   5 Replies   Latest reply: ohrats, Sep 6, 2012 10:57 AM
 
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  • David Kastendick
    3,110 posts
    Apr 7, 2010
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    1. David Kastendick,
    Aug 16, 2012 2:00 PM   in reply to ohrats
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    Is the file a relatively poor quality scanned document? Usually this type of behavior only occurs with documents that simply do not have enough data to be OCR'd.

     

    -David

     
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  • ohrats
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    2. ohrats,
    Aug 20, 2012 7:22 AM   in reply to David Kastendick
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    The quality isn't the best, but it's not awful. It's a pdf table format. In addition, the rows with information are shaded gray. In between each shaded information row is a blank white row.

     

    Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

     
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  • David Kastendick
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    Apr 7, 2010
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    3. David Kastendick,
    Aug 20, 2012 12:09 PM   in reply to ohrats
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    Could you post a screenshot of part of the file? 

     

    -David

     
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  • ohrats
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    4. ohrats,
    Aug 22, 2012 8:04 AM   in reply to David Kastendick
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      Thanks for your reply. My file is confidential, so I tried creating a similar file, 1 page long,that wasn't confidential. I found that Adobe easily converted the similar file using OCR.

     

    My original confidential file is 20 pages long, with 5 columns on each page. I thought maybe its length was the problem, so I tried converting only one of the pages to Word and it worked with OCR recognition. There were many, many mistakes though.  Also, it wasn't possible to copy and paste the columns into a new document. When I did that, the data reorganized itself into a list format with irregular formatting--as if I were pasting in text format. It seems like the OCR process only partially worked.
    I thought that maybe enough of the conversion was accurate for me to be able to work with it. when I looked at it closely I realized it wouldn't be possible.
    Unlike me, my colleague has the full version of Adobe. When she returns tomorrow (Thurs.), I will see if she is able to change any of the writing on the original document to make it non-confidential. If she can, I will include a screenshot.
     
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  • ohrats
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    5. ohrats,
    Sep 6, 2012 10:57 AM   in reply to ohrats
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    I am following up much later. On Aug 20 you asked me to insert a screenshot of the file that would not convert from pdf to Word with OCR. I scanned a small portion of the problem document and made a .bmp file. I tried to insert the image and got the message that there was an error and "the content type of this image is not allowed." Do you have any suggestions?

     
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