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Time required to OCR scan


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If you're on Windows, check and see under your note information whether the attachments have actually been indexed... 

 

If you in any way edit a note after the attachments have been indexed, the attachments get bumped out of their indexed status (if you tag a note, move it to a different notebook or edit the note in any way). In that case you could hit Ctrl + Help on the Windows desktop client > "Fix Current Note". That should be sufficient to index the attachments on your local machine.

 

Also, do yourself a favor and check to see if the text within your document shows up in a search on the Web client. If there is a discrepancy between the Web and your desktop client, it is most likely that your document was actually OCRed quicker than you thought, but the attachments therein reverted to not being indexed if you subsequently edited your note in any way whatsoever 

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  • Level 5*

Interesting, I am Premium member and and have a screen clip from 1/13 that has not been indexed.  That would be a week tomorrow?  Hmmm

 

Anyway, there is also a clip from 1/12 that has been indexed so it must be going to happen soon....  

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Thanks for the responses.  I'm on a Mac, so those Windows options aren't available for me.

 

I tried searching on the Web client as recommended - nothing there either.

 

This isn't an urgent requirement, but I am interested to see that what folks have suggested might take hours, is running into days.  Just a text before I scan a ton of documents, so it's useful to set my expectation.

 

It would be nice if Evernote could provide a timer somewhere, that indicates the approximate throughout for this activity.

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  • Level 5*

My bad on the earlier response, that was for an image not a PDF, though it is still taking a while to OCR it.

 

If you are scanning to PDF check to see if the scanner you are using has OCR software built in.  If it does and you engage it, your PDFs should be searchable right after you import them into EN.  I use a ScanSnap s1300i and use the OCR software that came with it since not all of my scans are in snyced notebooks so they wouldn't be OCRable  searchable otherwise.  FWIW.  

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Yeah, mine's for an image too, not a PDF.  If I just had a sense that (a) it works OK and (B) I know how long it will take, I'd be happier.

 

Good idea on the scanner.  I have a terrible scanner (an HP Photosmart C4680) and I really need a flatbed, but I'll look at those with OCR built in, good idea, thanks.

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5 days as of Friday 1pm MST.  I'll check back in here next week with an update.

 

At the moment it is clear that for 1 page, on a non-Premium account, this is days/weeks not hours.  I'm concerned that for many pages (I might need about 300-500) this is not really going to be viable.

 

I'd welcome feedback on Premium sync timing, since that might be a way to go once I've seen this page get synced.

 

No complaints or anything, just trying to set an expectation on timing.

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  • Level 5*

My 1/13 clip mentioned above is indexed now, in the last couple of days.  Also a clip from 34 minutes ago is indexed.  

 

There may have been an issue during the last couple since the 1/13 note took the better part of a week to index for me.  However, indexing seems to be back on track, for premium anyway.

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A year or 2 back when I was on a free account, my attachments were OCRed within the hour. Now it's almost instantaneous - as long as it takes me to hit the sync button a second time after my notes have synced to the servers. My best guess is that this is less of a waiting game and more a technical issue. I could offer a number of other troubleshooting suggestions... but it would be more interesting to hear about what you've done so far with your tinkering and testing (besides waiting).

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OK, so this attempt to scan a single page is coming up on 9 days with no joy.

 

I understand there is a queue, and that non-Premium users are at a lowered priority.

 

But if this goes over two weeks, I think it's safe to say that either 

 

a -  there's something unusual about my document, or 

 

b -  it doesn't work.

 

I don't know what else to test - I loaded the same document a few days after the first, in a separate note, and then loaded a different document (also 1 page) about 6 days after the first.

 

Does anyone have a similar experience, or can anyone confirm that they are syncing OK on a non-Premium account?

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I don't know what else to test...

 

 

Here's a comic strip that OCRed for me... Try this and see if it works for you... if it works, there may be something unusual about your document (Scenario a). Just drag it to your desktop.

 

ch930217.gif?dl=1

 

All words show up in a search... but I found it under a "perseverance" word search...

 

P.S. Delete after the conclusion of your test.

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Well I'll be damned.

 

I copied this comic strip, and tried syncing a few times.....not 60 seconds later and it worked!

 

I did notice that my attachments are .jpg's, and this one is a .gif - does that matter?

 

My .jpgs are high def - about 3.8 MB, so I can't load them here - might that be the problem?  I'll try scanning in a lower quality to see if that helps....

 

 

 

 

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Yup - that's the answer.  I really should have figured that out earlier, duh.

 

Size.

 

I've got my scanner set to default to scan to a jpg with a high resolution (600dpi) - becuase I usually scan old photographs, and store them locally, so the file size doesn't really matter.

 

Importing one of these to an EN note means it's still a large file - 3.8MB.

 

Scanning instead to a gif with an ordinary resolution (72 dpi) gives me a tiny file, around 90KB.

 

And that scans in under a minute.

 

Conclusions:

- it works really well

- under a minute even for non-Premium

- check the file size, dummy.

 

Many thanks to frank.dg and csihilling who commented and helped me find the answer.

 

Yak

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  • Level 5*

I did notice that my attachments are .jpg's, and this one is a .gif - does that matter?

 

In general GIF is a better format for drawings and text, which usually have only a few colors.

JPG is a better format for photographs that have lots of colors or greyscales.

 

So if you are scanning something primarily to record the text, then you might want to use GIF, or PDF.

GIF images are also usually much smaller than JPG images.

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  • 3 years later...

Another lovely Shaggy Dog story. 

But what is the bottom line?  How long does it take to OCR a PDF file?  Not what all the dependencies and possible factors are.

Just, how long?  Not that it depends on the length.

Of course it does.

So, how long?  Just the facts, Ma'am.

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55 minutes ago, IncrediMetaBeta said:

Another lovely Shaggy Dog story. 

But what is the bottom line?  How long does it take to OCR a PDF file?  Not what all the dependencies and possible factors are.

Just, how long?  Not that it depends on the length.

Of course it does.

So, how long?  Just the facts, Ma'am.

No set answer. If everthing is up and running, it depends on queued entries, ....

I just tested with a pdf and image on my Mac and Premium account

It took minutes.  I have never noticed a delay.  If it took hours, I'd open a support ticket

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23 minutes ago, DTLow said:

No set answer. If everthing is up and running, it depends on queued entries, ....

I just tested with a pdf and image on my Mac and Premium account

It took minutes.  I have never noticed a delay.  If it took hours, I'd open a support ticket

What are you trying to do by providing such a prompt, succinct and helpful answer? 

Upset the applecart?  It's people like you who help redeem the Evernote Forum and make it actually useful, instead of it being a conjugation of "he said; she said; and Louie said, and Helloise said, etc., etc., ad nauseum".  

Please take a bow!  Thanks!

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