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How-to search scanned hand-written portion of page

Forum Index > General Acrobat Topics > How-to search scanned hand-written portion of page
2009-10-12 08:20:18
rhanson
Registered: Oct 12 2009
Posts: 4

We have a typed form that has portions on the bottom half of the page that people fill out with their particular information. We are currently scanning them into a pdf file individually so that we can recall them electronically if required. This is very time consuming and therefore expensive. We could save a considerable amount of time if we could scan them all into one file and then be able to search it if needed. Does anybody know of a way that we can use the OCR in Adobe 9, and be able to search the file until we find the one the we want. There are portions that are in cursive writing, so I know those will not be able to be interpreted, but there is a hand-written number that I am trying to key off of. I am a newbie at this so any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.1.3, Windows
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2009-10-12 09:41:47
#1
try67
Expert
Registered: Oct 30 2008
Posts: 2399
I highly doubt Acrobat will be able to OCR it. You will probably need a third-party software.

- AcrobatUsers Community Expert - Contact me personally at try6767 [at] gmail [dot] com
Check out my custom-made scripts website: http://try67.blogspot.com

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2009-10-12 11:59:33
#2
rhanson
Registered: Oct 12 2009
Posts: 4
Any recommendations on third party software and also, will it save it so that it can be searched with the OCR translation?
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2009-10-12 13:57:40
#3
rbogie
Registered: Apr 28 2008
Posts: 432
steps:
1. scan each form to an individual pdf and give each pdf a name (in sequence like 000001.pdf, etc. or any unique file name relevant to the purpose, perhaps the respondents id# or name)
2. combine all the scanned files to a single "big" pdf -- note: the name of each component pdf will be represented by a bookmark
3. apply OCR to big pdf
4. type each handwritten portion to a text box (the only way because OCR cant interpret handwriting)
now you will be able to search everything in big pdf
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