In the course of working with documentation and databases, many significant problems arise. And we are not talking about the mass of errors that can be found in documents requiring the creation of a new file with corrections because of this, but also in simple human laziness. In principle, laziness has always been an engine of progress, because people always want to do everything faster in order to get rid of unnecessary worries, and in order to relax as much as possible, work should also be done with high quality. In this case, the question relates to the fact that many documents to be fully entered into some database or the general registry require typing in a new way, and this begins to not only tire, but also to bother. For this case, there is a scanner and a program for editing scanned documents.
What does a scanner do?
In general, a scanner is a device that transfers text from a printed document (newspaper, magazine, book, etc.) to a computer, it does this in the form of an image. Some devices have special programs that control the scanning process, while it is possible to choose even the format into which the source is converted. In the standard case, this is actually just a snapshot of some document, which cannot be edited due to the fact that the characters cannot be recognized.
What can be done later
You will be able to freely manage the received document, editing and modifying all or part of the text as a whole, only if you use a specialized program for editing scanned documents. These utilities are engaged in image recognition and translation into text that can be processed and edited. There are many programs of this kind, and each of them has its own nuances.
Good old ABBYY FineReader
Perhaps the most common program for editing scanned documents with the proud name ABBYY FineReader is a whole package of editors that allows you to make all kinds of manipulations with the scanned image. A high work result is achieved due to the fact that the program can recognize a document of any quality (even if you just took a photo on a mobile phone’s camera), and also because of the possibility of recognizing multilevel files that contain tables, figures and other small details. At the same time, during the recognition, you can set the language, which helps ABBYY FineReader to select the correct comparison characters, so that the program produces text with the least amount of errors.
Among other things, this editor does an excellent job with PDF documents. Thus, if you have a file of this format, then editing scanned PDF documents will be quick and effortless. The external interface itself is intuitive and does not require additional skills, such accessibility for a user of any level has influenced its popularization. And after recognition, you can compare the result and correct the flaws made by the program directly in the editor menu. The result itself is saved as a separate document, which you can change as you wish.
PDF tricks
Editing scanned documents is a monotonous thing, but if the source file is a PDF file, then there are tricks. The fact is that the FineReader view editor is very good at this, but its cost often repels the user and makes him look for analogues. Therefore, there are a number of separate utilities that allow you to perform highly specialized work aimed at PDF-format files.
PDFill PDF Tools
PDFill PDF Tools is a free program for editing scanned documents with the PDF extension. It contains a number of additional options, such as combining or separating documents, editing or deleting content completely, converting a PDF file to images and vice versa. Here you can also create lists, edit embedded images, align text and many other settings that are familiar to any user of the Microsoft Word package or its analogues. This program is absolutely free and designed for any level of use (private, corporate, etc.). The interface here, of course, is not the friendliest, but the set of functions and debugging makes up for it all with interest. That's just there is no Russian-language menu yet, therefore, if it did not work out with English, you will have to tinker with the dictionary.
Free pdf editor
Another free utility that allows you to edit PDF files. There is a more intuitive and convenient interface. Yes, and the program is supported by many operating systems, the only negative is that the finished document cannot be edited. But you can scan directly into this program, and even then work in full swing. True, you have to tinker with creating a virtual printer, because otherwise such a program for editing scanned documents simply will not work.
OCR editor
If you go back to the beginning and talk about free analogues of FineReader, then there is a program for editing doc documents called OCR Form. A quite useful utility, especially if you have to work with several languages (there is support for over 20 of the most common languages). She copes with printing or documents of poor quality, but as for the handwritten text, everything is not so smooth here. Of course, OCR can recognize such text, but the quality of this recognition so far leaves much to be desired.
As for the appearance, then many editors can envy him - everything is extremely simple: open the file and scan it, then save it in a suitable format - and that's it. The utility has gained popularity thanks to the possibility of self-training, the so-called adaptive recognition system, which will allow recognition to be better and better with every new request.
Another OCR family
Editing scanned documents is a painstaking task, therefore it is not surprising that for a good result some users are looking for other methods. In such cases, it is possible to use another utility - SimpleOCR. From the name it’s clear that this application, which is similar to the previous one, is OCR, but in a more simplified and advanced form. Here for you there is the ability to manually add words through the built-in editor, the ability to edit text directly in the utility window, as well as work with entire data packets (you can upload several files that will be recognized at once).
But the appearance can be a little
confusing, here you have to read a little about the program itself and the principles of its work. Otherwise, instead of an excellent editor, you can get a useless program for editing scanned documents, which takes up space on your computer.
And if the document is a picture?
Sometimes, when you are editing scanned documents in jpg format, there is a need to select not a text, but a picture (diagram, table, graph, etc.). And here the question is completely different. Indeed, when recognizing text, the task is posed in a completely different way. Now you need to not only recognize the image, but also bring it into an aesthetic look. For example, if you scan a diagram from a book, ink prints from other sheets will be visible. To get rid of these "interference", you should resort to the help of graphically editors.
One of these may be the good old Paint, but in a world where technological progress rules, primary positions in this matter are given to the good old Photoshop, because it is faster and more convenient. Editing scanned documents in "Photoshop" allows you to get rid of spots and "dirt", change the colors of drawings, vary their contrast and brightness using sets of various filters. In addition, there are plenty of lessons on how to do this or that operation, so you don’t need to be the “Photoshop genius”, just want to.
There are many other editors that you can use, online tools that can recognize scanned text without even having to select any other specialized software can also be great analogues. In general, any program for editing scanned documents has the right to life and to you to appreciate it.