OCR & Apps

[KimberlySA 1]

I've tried to use the Evernote photo option to get copies of text into Evernote, but I discovered that it isn't recognizing all of the text in the document.

I've tried a few scanning apps on my iphone to "scan" pages of text to add to evernote.  Apps are: TurboScan, Adobe Scan, and Scanbot.

I'm finding that some of the OCR features within Evernote, doesn't seem to work with all of the apps that scan text documents.

Scanbot is an app that Evernote lists in their App section, but the PDF documents that I have created with this app are useless.  Evernote won't scan the document to find the text.  Adobe Scan & TurboScan seems to work.

What are others using to ensure that the OCR function will work with scanned text documents?

[DTLow 5,736]

I'm relying on the Evernote OCR feature.  I haven't noticed any problems, and I'm guessing it's top quality

For specific OCR conversions, I'm using a third party product: PDF OCR X.  It does the job and the price was reasonable.

[stocky2605 401]

yes EN's OCR works good - the only issue I have with PDFs: using iPad is no fun because PDFs are not shown inline. So if a note is found based on PDF content you're not able to identify what PDF document has that text you were searching for and no chance to search the PDF itself for a particular text.

So, either you scan your docs with EN and save them as images to a note (not PDF) - they're shown inline - or use a 3rd party OCR software to get the PDFs OCR'd. Then EN is still able to find them and you can easily search within the PDFs - the question then is: who is doing a better OCR job? EN or the 3rd party App...

[leapayear 0]

I am using Evernote to inventory my Stampin' Up! stamp collection. I understood from a Youtube video that others have used the OCR feature to recognize text in the pngs I have copy/pasted into the note but when I use Search, nothing comes up unless it is live text or a keyword in the file. I upgraded to Premium thinking it might not be a free feature but still no luck. I'm using Windows desktop app but also tried it on my iPhone. Nope.

[gazumped 11,661]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:10 PM, leapayear said:

I am using Evernote to inventory my Stampin' Up! stamp collection. I understood from a Youtube video that others have used the OCR feature to recognize text in the pngs I have copy/pasted into the note but when I use Search, nothing comes up unless it is live text or a keyword in the file. I upgraded to Premium thinking it might not be a free feature but still no luck. I'm using Windows desktop app but also tried it on my iPhone. Nope.

Hi.  Where are you getting your PNGs from (apart from some on the iPhone)?  OCR depends on the image quality,  so if these are low-res web pictures (forinstance) they might fall below the threshold for OCR-ability.  If you are taking your own pictures,  some apps - like Evernote's Scannable - will OCR the picture for you and then send it to your Evernote database.

Another factor may be design:  I had this same problem when storing some books - I took pictures of the covers assuming that I could search by author or title,  but the layouts defeated me. Big fonts (which I appreciate is unlikely to be relevant here) and mixed colours (which might be) defeated the OCR feature.

Depending on your preferences,  you may be able to get 'around' the issue by searching for web pages and clipping the printed content as well as the pictures,  or just adding tags to make finding a bit easier - the type of stamp and the year forinstance could enable you to generate short (presumably) lists of stamp-notes so you can find relevant items quickly.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 5/20/2019 at 11:10 AM, leapayear said:

I am using Evernote to inventory my Stampin' Up! stamp collection. I understood from a Youtube video that others have used the OCR feature to recognize text in the pngs I have copy/pasted into the note but when I use Search, nothing comes up unless it is live text or a keyword in the file. I upgraded to Premium thinking it might not be a free feature but still no luck. I'm using Windows desktop app but also tried it on my iPhone. Nope.

Can you include post some of your images.

[leapayear 0]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  Where are you getting your PNGs from (apart from some on the iPhone)?  OCR depends on the image quality,  so if these are low-res web pictures (forinstance) they might fall below the threshold for OCR-ability.  If you are taking your own pictures,  some apps - like Evernote's Scannable - will OCR the picture for you and then send it to your Evernote database.

Another factor may be design:  I had this same problem when storing some books - I took pictures of the covers assuming that I could search by author or title,  but the layouts defeated me. Big fonts (which I appreciate is unlikely to be relevant here) and mixed colours (which might be) defeated the OCR feature.

Depending on your preferences,  you may be able to get 'around' the issue by searching for web pages and clipping the printed content as well as the pictures,  or just adding tags to make finding a bit easier - the type of stamp and the year forinstance could enable you to generate short (presumably) lists of stamp-notes so you can find relevant items quickly.

Thanks for the response, Gazumped. The pngs are very good quality -- I've taken a screen cap from the catalogue pdf.

[leapayear 0]

I've ended up typing the sentiment out in the note description but I feel like that's defeating the purpose.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, leapayear said:

The pngs are very good quality -- I've taken a screen cap from the catalogue pdf.

I added your image to Evernote, and here.s the OCR text identified    3172F1A2-42C8-4D4C-8B20-876ECB44DA5D.en-reco

The font is non-standard, so a lot is missed

I think you have the right idea - type the text into the note or title

[gazumped 11,661]

55 minutes ago, leapayear said:

I've ended up typing the sentiment out in the note description but I feel like that's defeating the purpose.

What information is it that you need to be OCR'd from that image? 

[leapayear 0]

Thanks for testing that DTLow ... I will continue to type the sentiments in but I am still wondering why I couldn't get the OCR to work? Does it happen automatically when you do a search?

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, leapayear said:

Thanks for testing that DTLow ... I will continue to type the sentiments in but I am still wondering why I couldn't get the OCR to work? Does it happen automatically when you do a search?

The OCR process is queued on the servers, but I find it runs quickly
I can check the Note Info to see if the indexing has completed

You might leave your images in image format instead of pdf

The OCR standards are less restrictive, and even identifies handwriting

[leapayear 0]

I just Synched it and IT WORKS!! Again, thanks for all the help.