Using PDFelement, you can easily transform your scanned files into fully editable and searchable PDFs.
PDFs have their benefits, but they aren’t without flaws. One of the major problems of the Portable Document Format (PDF) is that it is not easily editable and must be edited with a PDF editor.
There are a number of PDF editors available online, but not all of them will do the job well or provide you with the features you require.
You won’t find the ability to extract text on even the most popular PDF solutions, but PDFelement is a one-stop shop for all your PDF management needs. Let’s have a look at PDFelement and its built-in OCR reader to see if we can get some text out of a PDF.
What Is PDFelement?
Wondershare’s PDFelement is an all-in-one PDF editor, converter, and signer that works on desktop, mobile, and web platforms.
Wondershare has released an updated version of its software, named PDFelement9. New features include an enhanced user interface, cloud-based document storage and administration, accelerated document loading and rendering times, and the ability to translate your PDF into any language on the fly.
PDFelement9 also has an optical character recognition (OCR) reader, which can recognize and extract text fragments from PDF files using the program’s in-built OCR engine.
The meaning of OCR is explained. What’s More, Why Should You Use PDFelement’s OCR PDF Converter?
OCR, which stands for “optical character recognition,” is a method for extracting the text from a digital image and making it searchable and usable online. It’s also known as text recognition and it saves you from having to manually put in text that you see on a picture or PDF.
The OCR reader in Wondershare PDFelement stands out from other OCR converters due to its ability to accurately duplicate the document’s original layout. PDFelement’s text extraction preserves the document’s original style and formatting, including headers, footnotes, illustrations, etc., so you won’t have to.
In a nutshell, here are some benefits you’ll enjoy while using the OCR reader in PDFelement:
Fast and reliable OCR engine
Accurate and high-quality conversion
Batch OCR processing
Support for 20+ languages
Why Is an OCR Reader Necessary for PDFs?
One of the most common applications for optical character recognition software is to digitize paper documents so that they can be read by a computer; this saves users the trouble and effort of transcribing the text by hand. In addition to reducing the likelihood of human error, this also guarantees that your documents will be devoid of such mistakes.
You can edit a PDF file just like you would edit a document you produced from scratch by converting it to an editable format. The ability to pick text, copy it, and then paste it into another document is another useful feature of an editable document.
Converting a PDF into an editable document also improves the document’s search capabilities. Now that the text is highlightable, you may quickly find what you need by opening the search box and entering the relevant terms.
Tutorial on Using PDFelement for Mac OCR
PDFelement simplifies the process of transforming a PDF into a document that can be edited. First, use this link to download and install PDFelement on your Mac so that you may follow along with our detailed instructions below.
Launch the DMG file, and then install PDFelement by following the on-screen instructions. After the application is installed, the PDF Converter and OCR plugins must be installed so that PDF files can be OCR’d. To accomplish this, do as follows:
On your Mac, fire up Wondershare PDFelement.
In the main menu, select PDFelement, and then click Preferences.
Choose Extension in the menu bar.
You may get the PDF Converter and OCR plugins by clicking the Download button there.
Once the plugins are installed, you can OCR PDFs in PDFelement by repeating the following steps:
Select Open on PDFelement’s main window. Select the scanned PDF or image-based PDF that you wish to run OCR on and click Open when it opens in Preview. The PDF file can also be imported by dragging and dropping onto the PDFelement window.
Select OCR Text Recognition from the Tool menu.
The OCR Text Recognition window will now open in PDFelement. Here you can tailor the final document to your needs by choosing its language, pages, downsampling size, and output format.
When you’re ready, select OCR and click the button.
PDFelement’s processing time may vary, depending on the size of your PDF. Relax and wait for it to end.
The OCR process must be completed before you can begin editing this document. Select the appropriate option under the Edit menu to carry out the desired operation.
When you are finished making edits, select File > Save to store your work. Keep in mind that if you want to save documents in PDFelement, you’ll need to upgrade to Wondershare PDFelement Pro.
Prices for Wondershare’s PDFelement
The Wondershare PDFelement is a commercial program. There are three distinct options for individuals to choose from:
Perpetual: $159
Quarterly: $49
Yearly: $129
In addition, you may try out PDFelement before committing to a paid subscription by downloading the free Trial version. However, the Trial version’s functionality is severely restricted, so don’t expect to get much done.
PDFelement9 includes OCR functionality at no cost, albeit with some restrictions. One, the downloadable editable PDF cannot be saved. Two, you have no say over the output quality, and you can only convert a maximum of three pages at once. Last but not least, PDFelement includes a watermark in saved documents.
If you need more from OCR conversion, you can remove these limitations by purchasing PDFelement Pro.
Quickly and Easily Transform Your PDF Files Into Editable Documents
Without a doubt, optical character recognition (OCR) is the most valuable function of modern PDF editors. It enables the transformation of any PDF file into an interactive document, permitting the user to easily choose and manipulate images without resorting to a different OCR converter.
In this respect, Wondershare PDFelement shines by virtue of its high-quality, lightning-fast OCR converter. PDFelement is recommended over competing PDF editors due to its broad feature set, which includes not only the ability to edit PDFs but also to convert them, sign them, annotate them, add security features, and fill out PDF forms.