PDFelement - Edit, Annotate, Fill and Sign PDF Documents
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It's really a hassle to deal with too much paper in office, so the best practice will be to scan the files to PDF and save them digitally like in hard drives or even in the cloud. In that way, you will save much space from storing piles of paper and it's convenient to search out the file you want easily. That is a paperless trend and more and more businesses are following it.
But apart from all the advantages of scanned PDF files, the biggest problem also comes. That is, how can we turn the scanned PDF back into editable files, like Word, Excel, Text or even editable PDF files? That's where PDF OCR comes in. So what is PDF OCR exactly? You can find the answer here.
First, let's clarify what OCR is. OCR is shortened for Optical Character Recognition and is a technology used for convert scanned PDF or image files and all other kinds of documents into editable and searchable data. You don't need to know what OCR technology is exactly but to remember what it turns out. So OCR PDF is to make scanned PDF files editable and searchable through OCR technology.
There are many PDF editing software that have been integrated with OCR function and turn out to be very popular among individuals and also businesses. Wondershare PDFelement is one of them. Let's see the step-by-step guide of how to OCR PDF with PDFelement below.
Note: This solution is not free. You will need to pay in order to use the OCR functions. If you think it not necessary, just turn to the online services that are totally free. But PDF OCR software will be more stable and safer with higher-quality output compared to online services. What's more, those programs also have more PDF editing functions you will need such as convert, create, annotate, sign and more.
Download PDFelement from the following link and choose the right version for your computer. We will take the Windows version as an example. This program provides a trial version but with page limitation and watermark. You can first try PDFelement to test its functions like Edit, Convert, Create, Bates Numbering, Annotate, digital signature and much more.
Note: The OCR function has no trial and become usable only after you have paid for it.
After you have tried PDFelement, if you think it good, you can buy both PDFelement and OCR in order to activate the OCR function and also avoid page limitations and watermark. It's $89.95. That is, if you only buy OCR but not PDFelement, though you can use the OCR function, you will still get watermark and have page limitations.
After purchasing, you will receive two mails with registration information and download link for PDFelement and OCR respectively. Since you have installed PDFelement, now you only need to click on the download link of OCR and get it installed. After installing, a window will prompt for you to enter registration code of OCR. Then PDFelement will also be registered automatically. You are ready to OCR PDF.
Open a scanned PDF file from your local folder and the program will automatically recognize it. Click the "Perform OCR" button on the yellow Notification bar. Alternatively, you can click "OCR" under the "Edit" tab. After some minutes, you can start to edit the PDF file at will, such as annotate, sign and much more. And also you can convert the editable PDF files to other formats like Word, Excel, Powerpoint or others by clicking the options under the "Home" tab. And also you can sign the file, comment on it and more.
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