9 replies to this topic

[ChrisToad]

Team!

I'm new to EN. I also did a ton of digging before I decided to create a thread. If this has been covered, apologies.


I have a small conundrum. In short, my scanned documents (PDF) do not get OCR processing by EN.. and I don't understand why. I'd really like for my scanned docs to be search-able.

I'm using a Xerox WC7655. I double checked this knowledge base entry to help make sure my documents meet the OCR processing criterion, they do.
https://support.ever...#38;docID=12656


My doc is a full page meeting agenda with text, and some sloppy handwriting courtesy of yours truly. I can't attach it here because of sensitive business data on the page.

Here's my test to help troubleshoot the issue:

• Photograph document using iPhone, add to EN.
  
  • Result: EN performs OCR on text and sloppy handwriting. High-five, go team.

• Scan same document with Xerox 7655, add to EN.
  
  • Result: Flat 'image' PDF in Adobe Reader and in EN. Not search-able, no EN OCR processing occurs, at all. Unsuccessful result.
• Scan same document with Xerox 7655, but this time enabling OCR on the Xerox.
  
  • Result: Xerox OCR algorithm converts type, but not the handwriting. So it 'works', but not as well as the EN OCR processing. The EN support doc says that if OCR pre-exists, they don't process it.
  So I really want process #2 to work correctly and have EN perform the OCR work... any suggestion on what I might be doing wrong here?

Just to add, I'm not a Premium user (yet), I want to see that this works first. I have allowed a few hours to pass in order to work through the OCR queue.

Edited by ChrisToad, 09 February 2012 - 12:37 AM.

[gazumped]

Hi Chris

If you're not a prem user, your OCR will have to wait until we priviledged paid-for types get service. I suspect that may be your root problem. However. PDF OCR does not include hand-scrawled text, so if you're looking for a solution that covers the handwriting, JPGs may be the way to go. You mention that if you OCR this stuff yourself you get a result (subject to the minor omission mentioned above) - so what's wrong with continuing to OCR the stuff yourself so you don't have to wait in future?

- and bear in mind that you can submit two or more items per note.. so you could add an OCR'd PDF file for the typed text, and pics - or parts of pics - for the related handwritten comments.

[JamesCE]

I was going to say the same... you may just have to wait.
Many of us users (at least me) always conduct OCR prior to EN.
Lots of discussions about that but personally I don't reply on EN. Not that its not that good but if I ever export it... it will always be there

[ChrisToad]

gazumped, on 09 February 2012 - 12:52 AM, said:

Hi Chris

If you're not a prem user, your OCR will have to wait until we priviledged paid-for types get service. I suspect that may be your root problem. However. PDF OCR does not include hand-scrawled text, so if you're looking for a solution that covers the handwriting, JPGs may be the way to go. You mention that if you OCR this stuff yourself you get a result (subject to the minor omission mentioned above) - so what's wrong with continuing to OCR the stuff yourself so you don't have to wait in future?

- and bear in mind that you can submit two or more items per note.. so you could add an OCR'd PDF file for the typed text, and pics - or parts of pics - for the related handwritten comments.

Thanks for the reply!

I thought maybe the OCR queue might be the cause. What confused me was that the JPG photo taken with my iPhone completed the EN OCR process in a matter of minutes... while the scanned PDF has been sync'd to the cloud for about 2 days now. It could be my error by assuming that the OCR queue was agnostic to file types, but the JPG queue may be separate from the PDF queue (longer wait?). Not sure.

Regarding the 'handwriting'... I exaggerated slightly. My handwriting isn't completely mangled, just 'guy' handwriting. I was shocked and impressed at how the EN OCR was able to detect and make search-able everything i had written on the page. A majority of the notes I'd like to scan are hand-written, that is why I got excited when I saw EN working so well with it. I agree that the Xerox OCR will work for typed docs.
My ideal solution would be to bulk scan the masses of stuff on my desk, and let EN allow me to search through everything. Typed, and within reason, handwritten. 100% detection of handwritten notes isn't realistic, and I realize that.

Thank you again for the reply!

[gazumped]

No problem - if it helps I have around 7,000 notes with mixed JPG / DOC / PDF / Webclip and other content, some of the PDF files being well over the page limit for Evernote OCR. I OCR everything I can before uploading, with suitably titled and tagged notes. All of this is now electronic, but it used to be a six-foot high by around 10-foot long set of shelving groaning with folders of various types. Getting stuff filed into that scenario was daunting, and finding anything was.. unreliable. I now have this external hard drive sitting on my desk and do all my filing and finding more reliably and sitting down. And a wheelbarrow now occupies the previously allocated document storage area. I'd say you can pretty much rely on Evernote to tidy up your working area - all you have to do is get started!

- and I don't even work for these guys

[ChrisToad]

gazumped, on 09 February 2012 - 01:40 AM, said:

- and I don't even work for these guys

Somewhat shocking! Thanks for the replies!

[GrumpyMonkey]

gazumped, on 09 February 2012 - 01:40 AM, said:

No problem - if it helps I have around 7,000 notes with mixed JPG / DOC / PDF / Webclip and other content, some of the PDF files being well over the page limit for Evernote OCR. I OCR everything I can before uploading, with suitably titled and tagged notes. All of this is now electronic, but it used to be a six-foot high by around 10-foot long set of shelving groaning with folders of various types. Getting stuff filed into that scenario was daunting, and finding anything was.. unreliable. I now have this external hard drive sitting on my desk and do all my filing and finding more reliably and sitting down. And a wheelbarrow now occupies the previously allocated document storage area. I'd say you can pretty much rely on Evernote to tidy up your working area - all you have to do is get started!

- and I don't even work for these guys

similar experience here. primarily pdf and text. it took a really long time, but i have digitized several bookcases worth of books and notes. my file cabinets and file boxes have all been digitized as well. going paperless was definitely not easy, but it was well worth it. i also ocr before uploading.

[Stephen Towler]

Ditto. I converted my entire library (> 500 books) to OCR'd PDFs. A local copy shop uses a hydraulic blade to chop off each spine ($1 each), and then I feed through my scansnap S1500M for OCR and storage. Any texts I'm actively working with get attached to an Evernote note (or, if > 20 MB, dropbox) for easy cross-platform access. I scan at 300 dpi and store at 150 dpi after text-under-image OCR. Searching and marking-up resulting PDFs is plenty fast on iPad2 and mac, linux, and windows desktops.

[GrumpyMonkey]

Stephen Towler, on 18 February 2012 - 03:43 AM, said:

Ditto. I converted my entire library (> 500 books) to OCR'd PDFs. A local copy shop uses a hydraulic blade to chop off each spine ($1 each), and then I feed through my scansnap S1500M for OCR and storage. Any texts I'm actively working with get attached to an Evernote note (or, if > 20 MB, dropbox) for easy cross-platform access. I scan at 300 dpi and store at 150 dpi after text-under-image OCR. Searching and marking-up resulting PDFs is plenty fast on iPad2 and mac, linux, and windows desktops.

that's great!

i have slowly been converting my library to pdfs, and i have done a few thousand books and articles now. it is actually pretty easy to tear apart a book yourself (manageable sections of a few dozen pages at a time), trim it (if you have a paper guillotine, then the process goes a bit more smoothly), feed it through the scan snap (ideally, an office-quality scanner with 600 dpi is the way to go), and ocr it. the ipad 2 is ok, but i wouldn't call it fast. i have high expectations for the ipad 3!

[BurgersNFries]

Indexing of PDFs is a premium feature.

If you want handwriting OCRd, it's best to scan as an image, since the image OCR produces a tree of possibilities. The PDF OCR doesn't work well with handwriting.