3 ms·
If you already have PDFs, isn't OCR simply a PDF --> PDF+metadata conversion? Why wouldn't some open source OCR software work, where you feed it your old PDFs a
by lazyjeff 16y ago
If you already have PDFs, isn't OCR simply a PDF --> PDF+metadata conversion? Why wouldn't some open source OCR software work, where you feed it your old PDFs and it outputs OCRed PDFs. Is this some kind of tactic for scanner manufacturers to sell newer versions of scanner or am I understanding this wrong. (Maybe OCR happens at the pre-PDF level where the scanner can read the document in a higher resolution?)
- wladimir 16y agoYou can indeed do OCR at any stage. The only potential issue I see is that JPEG compression (as used by PDF) might interfere with some OCR algorithm and make it less reliable, so OCRing directly on the raw output of the scanner might yield a somewhat better recognition. Then again, I know nothing of the protocols used by scanners over USB; it might well be that scanners send their result already compressed, or that the resolution is so high compared to the letter size that this doesn't matter.