Pdf reader

By Tangela, 28 August, 2013

Forum

macOS and Mac Apps

Hello, I am trying to read several pdf's which are scanned versions of documents. Because of the way they are scanned, VoiceOver reacts to them as though they were an image and registers no text to read. I thought I had read once of a pdf reader which could extract the text from image pdf's, but can't seem to find it again. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? Any help would be appreciated, Tangela

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You might try voice Dream. It's a paid ap but perhaps someone else has an alternative.

Hi. Thanks for the

Hi. Thanks for the suggestion. I have voice dream, and for most things, it works wonders. However, it can not extract text from images in pdf's.

You need an OCR app

If you are trying to read text content from a PDF image, you need to use a program or application that can OCR text from a PDF. If you need to read this on an iOS device, get the Prizmo app that is currently on sale for half price ($4.99 instead of the normal $9.99 list price) through September 6, and is currently listed under the iOS app deals. Prizmo is unusual among iOS OCR apps because since the May 2013 update to version , it supports OCR from PDFs, while most iOS OCR apps require an input image format of joeg, either acquired from your device's camera, or selected from your Camera Roll. Your question is posted under OS X and Mac App discussion category. If you want a solution for the Mac, ABBYY FineReader Express can OCR documents directly from image PDF files, as well as be used with other file formats with an actual scanner. This was recently on sale for half price ($49.99 vs. the current list price of $99.99 at the !ac App Store) for a week up through August 25, 2013, and was also posted on AppleVis as a Mac OS X app deal whole the sale was active.

heartfelt thanks

Hi. Thank you so much for that information! Just tried Prizmo, and it seems to work extremely well! I was able to get a mostly readable version of my pdf's! I've been working on that for several days now. Thank you!

Can also get Phone Drive for Prizmo transfers back to computer

Glad that Prizmo worked for you. I'll add that for PDF image files that you receive (e.g., as mail attachments or that you transfer through Dropbox) Prizmo can be used on any iOS device to OCR and read the text, even if that device has a poor camera or no camera. This is particularly useful for students who receive documents distributed as PDF scans that they may need to read even on an iPod Touch or iPad. However, Prizmo is also among the best of the iOS OCR apps both in overall performance and accessibility if you use it with your device's camera (e.g., with a StandScan Pro, or if you master using it freehand to OCR text documents). Just wanted to add that if you use Prizmo a lot, and want to expedite the process of transferring files between your iOS device and your computer, you might want to also get Phone Drive, which I've just posted as an app deal for sale at $0.99. Phone Drive can be used as a media and file viewer/player for many functions entirely apart from its file transfer and management features. However, if you use Prizmo a lot on your iOS device, Phone Drive's file management and support of Dropbox and iCloud will make it easier for you to manage your file transfers between your device and your computer, both by letting you set up folders and controlling file naming (instead of just exporting output text from Prizmo), and also increasing the size/efficiency of the file transfers. It's not necessary, but it sure can be convenient. Also, I'll add that on the Mac, ABBYY FineReader Express is currently again on sale at 50% for $49.99, although it wasn't when I first answered your post. So for an OCR solution to read PDF images directly on the Mac, as well as in conjunction with a scanner, that's an option.

thank you!

Hi, I know I'm not the person who originally asked this question, but I have been having the same problem. Thank you for taking the time to post your solutions to this site. You have helped many other people by doing this.

pdf reader!

I do have prizmo. But I like KNFB for this work. As I got both apps, I like doing it with knfb reader.

Raaj.

KNFB and pages out of order

I've found this a couple of times. KNFB does OCR very well, but the pages are sometimes out of order. Anyone else had this problem? I can't tell whether it's something to do with the PDF or not. I emailed KNFB support and got a curious reply: first sentence said 'we will pass this on to the engineers.' second sentence said 'I hope this information has resolved your query.' Is it just me, or does the second sentence not really follow from the first?