Evernote Plus and search inside PDF

[humpf 0]

I'm a little confused, as stated in the FAQ (https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/92500587) we have to be a Premium do search inside PDF, even PDFs of text, not images, as stated gbarry here https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/83722-questions-about-new-evernote-service-levels/?p=356959

 

But after attaching a PDF today and syncing, I'm able to search normally for text inside PDFs.

 

Since I'm researching Evernote to use as my primary tool for, well, everything, I really want to know if this is the default behavior or temporary, or even if in Plus we can search for text PDF maybe

 

Thanks

[gazumped 11,652]

There seems to be a difference between the way in which searchable (ie OCR'd) PDFs and image-based (none-OCR'd) PDFs are handled.  I believe that if you add a searchable PDF to Evernote,  its existing index will be processed and added to the database.  The file will therefore be searchable.  Ordinary scans produce page images,  which can be OCR'd by Evernote after they are uploaded to the server - but that OCR service is not available to free users.

[eric99 978]

Does Evernote Plus OCR embedded images in PDF documents or do I need the premium version for that?

Thanks, Eric

[gazumped 11,652]

32 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Does Evernote Plus OCR embedded images in PDF documents or do I need the premium version for that?

Thanks, Eric

Evernote doesn't OCR images in PDF files at all.  Save a JPG or a PNG if you need that to happen,  or use your own OCR software to create a searchable file.

[eric99 978]

Are you sure about that? I have a premium and I always scan my documents in pdf format which I can search later on.

[gazumped 11,652]

Sorry - thinking about handwriting,  not OCR.  Scanned documents are simply images of each page,  and yes,  Evernote scans the pics.

[eric99 978]

Yes, but then my question was whether this still works in Evernote Plus?

[buckethead 218]

While I am not 100% sure of this, but this is how I understand it to work.  If your upload a PDF that has OCR already it will be searchable in a Plus account, but EN will not OCR the pdf for you.  EN will OCR images and pdfs in premium accounts.  

It would be great for EN to chime in here and provide a comprehensive answer to this as well.

[gazumped 11,652]

On 01/07/2016 at 4:50 PM, buckethead said:

It would be great for EN to chime in here and provide a comprehensive answer to this as well.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005157

 

[CalS 5,280]

A however to the table in the previous post, if you OCR the PDF yourself, let ScanSnap do it for you for example, the PDF will be searchable in all tiers of EN, including Basic.  Don't know if ScanSnap or the like OCR the images in scans though....

[buckethead 218]

 

17 hours ago, gazumped said:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005157

 

That is not a comprehensive answer - just a checkbox about searching in documents.  I would like to see it specifically address OCR and using OCR in search.

 

15 hours ago, csihilling said:

A however to the table in the previous post, if you OCR the PDF yourself, let ScanSnap do it for you for example, the PDF will be searchable in all tiers of EN, including Basic.  Don't know if ScanSnap or the like OCR the images in scans though....

This is more of the type of answer it would be great if EN provided - do they consider that search to be documents they OCR only OR previously OCR'd documents as well.  I have started using Scanner Pro from my iPhone to OCR pdfs sent into EN.  I would like to think that since I am providing the OCR before it is sent to EN that the OCR will still be searchable for Plus accounts.

[CalS 5,280]

3 hours ago, buckethead said:

This is more of the type of answer it would be great if EN provided - do they consider that search to be documents they OCR only OR previously OCR'd documents as well.  I have started using Scanner Pro from my iPhone to OCR pdfs sent into EN.  I would like to think that since I am providing the OCR before it is sent to EN that the OCR will still be searchable for Plus accounts.

You could twitter them to get an answer I suppose, this is a user forum.  I can just tell you from a practical basis that is how it works today. 

I use ScanSnap to scan documents and use the OCR function provided there.  If I download a PDF which hasn't been OCR'd I use Adobe to OCR it.  I have a Basic account in addition to a Premium account.  I move notes, typically completed projects, from the Premium to the Basic account.  PDF searches work fine in the Basic account based upon this workflow.  FWIW.

[speedbump9 0]

Ticked off to the extreme.  A folder of mine with all of its contents went missing for no good reason.  I tried to create a new folder with the same name.  It won't let me because it says I already have this folder.  Where this folder is, God only knows.  

[gazumped 11,652]

On 12/07/2016 at 4:36 PM, speedbump9 said:

Ticked off to the extreme.  A folder of mine with all of its contents went missing for no good reason.  I tried to create a new folder with the same name.  It won't let me because it says I already have this folder.  Where this folder is, God only knows.  

Hi.  Evernote doesn't use folders,  so more information about your setup and the problem would help us try to help you if that's what you'd like...

[DTLow 5,736]

On July 12, 2016 at 8:36 AM, speedbump9 said:

Ticked off to the extreme.  A folder of mine with all of its contents went missing for no good reason.  I tried to create a new folder with the same name.  It won't let me because it says I already have this folder.  Where this folder is, God only knows.  

Is this related to the title of this discussion?

Anyways, I'm guessing you meant notebook

Can you do a search for known notes of the notebook.  If found, you can check which notebook they're assigned to.

If not found, as in deleted, you should be able to see them in your Trash

Previously there was a discussion from a user who was upset about a deleted notebook.  He discovered that he had accidetly moved it out from under a stack.

[sflorack 3]

I can confirm that previously OCR'd documents can be searched with a less than Premium account.  This includes PDFs that were previously OCD'd by Evernote.  i.e. If you subscribe to Premium and later cancel it, you keep the OCR'd version.

[santander 5]

I am unable to search most of my pdf files. I have to open them in Skim or other PDF reader to search within them. I always wondered about this problem since Evernote boldly states that it will index all PDF. And forget about files that have been scanned. They will never index. Perhaps there is a problem with my installation. Using Evernote on Mac.

[DTLow 5,736]

10 minutes ago, santander said:

I am unable to search most of my pdf files. I have to open them in Skim or other PDF reader to search within them. I always wondered about this problem since Evernote boldly states that it will index all PDF. And forget about files that have been scanned. They will never index. Perhaps there is a problem with my installation. Using Evernote on Mac.

This is documented further here   https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314518

Can you attach a pdf to a post and we can check on it.

 

 

 

[santander 5]

As you can see from the attached screenshot Evernote wont even index text in this PDF file. The only search result is in the note title. I have also attached the actual PDF file. Many of my PDF files are like this. Opening in an external PDF reader and then drag and dropping into Evernote will often fix the problem. digishockxt_pages.pdf

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, santander said:

As you can see from the attached screenshot Evernote wont even index text in this PDF file. The only search result is in the note title. I have also attached the actual PDF file. Many of my PDF files are like this. Opening in an external PDF reader and then drag and dropping into Evernote will often fix the problem. digishockxt_pages.pdf

Search is working for me

[CalS 5,280]

Windows here.  Out of interest, I downloaded the PDF from the web page to a local folder so it never synced, nor did I OCR it myself, so in  theory no OCRing after the download.  The PDF is searchable for me which might imply the OCR was included in the file?

Could it be it was just that the text wasn't highlighted?  May be different on the Mac....

 

[santander 5]

There is something funny with my Evernote for Mac. I think it in particular affects files that are acquired with the Safari web extension. Drag and dropping files into Evernote seems to be better.

[CalS 5,280]

 Bug report time?

[greoj 0]

Hello,

I was also confused why I could search within "normal" pdf's as a free basic user.

Today I have found some interesting comments in the old blog entry from 2009: https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2009/07/27/pdf-search/
Perhaps the commented behavior is still the same.

 

Quote

 

David Emmons —

So if we use the Mac’s Shift+Evernote button in Safari is that PDF a searchable type even on the free version? Just curious.

 

• 

  Andrew Sinkov —

  @David Excellent question. Text within PDFs that were created using our Safari Clipper or by converting an Office doc have always been searchable. This new feature is great for those using a document scanner. The output of most document scanners is essentially an image in PDF form. Now, Evernote will process those PDFs and make them searchable.

 

 

Quote

 

michael kastler —

I’m sorry to be so dense, but I’m still trying to figure this out … if I’m a free user, and I upload a PDF that has been run through my own OCR software and made searchable, that document will be searchable within evernote – regardless of my status as a premium or free user? But if I upload a ‘standard’ PDF file, that is non-searchable, it will only be converted to searchable if I am a premium subscriber.

Is that correct? Also, what does this mean for images – will they also only be searchable for premium users soon?

Thanks!

 

• 

  Andrew Sinkov —

  @Michael Kastler You’ve absolutely right. If you’re a free user and your PDFs are already searchable, they’re remain that way. Standard un-searchable PDFs will be made searchable for premium users.

 

•  

 

•  

[ChiragC 18]

I have not been able to properly follow this discussion, so please excuse me if I do not understand basic things already pointed out in this thread.

I want to know what happens when I combine a set of images of handwritten notes into PDF (outside of Evernote) and upload that to Evernote - will it be searchable? I have subscribed to Evernote Premium. I have taken those images from my phone's camera and have not put them in any software or OCR software. I have them stored in Google Drive.

Another question - if I combine those images into a PDF (outside of Evernote and again not OCRd) and save it in Google Drive (instead of uploading them in Evernote), can I use the integration to search those notes?

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  See https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313388

Which types of scanned PDFs are searchable?

PDFs that

•     contain clear, typed text (handwriting is not searchable inside PDFs)
•     do not already contain text that you can select or copy
•     contain at least one page with a small image (1025 pixels of image data)
•     are less than 100 pages long
•     are less than 25 MB in size
•     are not password-protected
•     are not corrupted or unreadable

Save the handwritten notes as JPG's (many PDF editor apps will export a long document into JPG pages) and they will be OCR'd - with "variable" results.  Do some tests on your own material to find out how effective the process will be.

There are some drawbacks to using multiple JPGs in one note - getting them into the right order can be a challenge,  but it does mean you get a full page display.

I find that it is far faster to search by eye than to keep trying search terms - I have some notebooks converted to both PDF and JPG.  I add an executive summary to the beginning of the note(s) and section headings / summaries / additional highlight notes throughout.  If I need to find my notes on 'the structure of the eye'  a search for "intitle:eye intitle:structure" will find them,  and paging through I can find the section on 'rods' pretty quickly just by scrolling.

[ChiragC 18]

Related to search inside PDF topic:

@gazumped, I am trying to search for specific terms/phrases in PDF files attached in different notes in Evernote.

I see that the terms are highlighted in each note. I can easily navigate between the notes and find what I am looking for. However, within a particular note's PDF attachment, the search term may be highlighted multiple times in the file. How do I get to the next highlight within that particular PDF file other than manually scrolling through each page and looking out for the highlight?

[ChiragC 18]

1 hour ago, ChiragC said:

Related to search inside PDF topic:

@gazumped, I am trying to search for specific terms/phrases in PDF files attached in different notes in Evernote.

I see that the terms are highlighted in each note. I can easily navigate between the notes and find what I am looking for. However, within a particular note's PDF attachment, the search term may be highlighted multiple times in the file. How do I get to the next highlight within that particular PDF file other than manually scrolling through each page and looking out for the highlight?

Found the way accidentally - turns out one must click on the note and hit Command+F which launches the search bar within the note which shows the number of matches for a search term within the note.

I would like to refine my question now - is there a way to add this search-within-note bar to the toolbar or do I have to click on the note each time and then hit Command+F?

Edit: Does Evernote mention number of matches of search terms in each note? I know that Evernote shows the number of notes containing the search terms and that searching inside the note shows the number of matches within the document, but does Evernote show the search results with number of matches overall and number of matches in each note listed in the search result?

[gazumped 11,652]

Evernote will give you a global total of items found in the search information bar (don't know where that is in Mac).  There's some general information on searching here,  which you may have already seen... Find what you need

If you are led to a particular note you can step through the hits there with Ctrl-F,  though it doesn't seem to show the number within that document.  Beware that images in your documents can cause false positives - "sample" forinstance came up in one image I found with this search.

PDF files have their own search option,  and you can step through hits in a similar way - it will show the total hits within that file too.

Search used to have various options that seem to have disappeared in my current Windows beta,  but I don't recall search within note as being one of them.  I don't believe there's a way to move that option from the individual note body.

[ChiragC 18]

3 hours ago, gazumped said:

Evernote will give you a global total of items found in the search information bar (don't know where that is in Mac).  There's some general information on searching here,  which you may have already seen... Find what you need

It appears as though the search bar design/features are quite different in Mac. Here's what I can see:

 

[ChiragC 18]

On 8/21/2016 at 4:37 PM, gazumped said:

Hi.  See https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313388

Which types of scanned PDFs are searchable?

PDFs that

•     contain clear, typed text (handwriting is not searchable inside PDFs)

@gazumped, I have quite a few scanned PDFs of handwritten notes. Quite obviously, this is not searchable in Evernote. I understand that images are searchable though not always completely reliable.

I want to know if I will be able to search those notes after I convert the PDF to images. Does it affect the indexing? Also, do you know of any way outside of Evernote to search for handwritten text in PDFs? Please help. I don't have the original notes to scan as images.

Sorry for asking questions repeatedly related to the same topic.

[gazumped 11,652]

5 hours ago, ChiragC said:

Sorry for asking questions repeatedly related to the same topic.

Not a problem.  If you convert handwritten notes to images they will be indexed,  but there are a number of considerations...

• it can be difficult to get a lot of images into the correct order - probably best to have a single image per note and number the titles "001 <title of the document>",  002 etc
• converting a PDF to an image isn't necessarily great quality,  which may affect the recognition of characters;  as will squared paper,  bad lighting,  poor contrast etc
• subject to the above,  indexing of each word will be a 'probability tree' - actual word "horse" will also have 'house', 'hands', 'harps' attached,  so your searches will include false positives.  Add tags or keywords in the note to weed those out.

On the good side - at least you'll always see your pictures inline!

[brighthero 0]

So since the search of PDF with handwriting in it is the only feature I need from Evernote, when I subscribed to PLUS on my iPhone it showed me this:

[gazumped 11,652]

Hmmn.  That first paragraph seems to contradict other help pages.  See the comparison chart for more details of account capabilities.  The only way to confirm which is correct is to test out what features you see in your upgraded account.