I need to scan a lot of pages and I had no idea that it would take so long to scan a single page. If I have to scan hundreds or even thousands of pages what should I do ? Do you`ve heard of Presto OCR ? Can you suggest me a very good ocr software that convert given files to editable word files ?
I would like to say that I`ve already wrote an article regarding this subject. I will answer to all of these questions but I also strongly recommend you to read this: the best ocr software which is a more detailed article covering this subject.
I need to scan a lot of pages and I had no idea that it would take so long to scan a single page.
Yes, it`s true, most of the scanners were being designed to allow you to scan a photo or a page and then another one and so on, they were not built for speed. You are being limited to one file at a time. They were created for home users and they should be enough for most of the users who doesn`t need to scan more than a couple of files in their entire life. Not to mention the price which is low so everyone can afford a regular scanner. I`ve seen prices competing with fancy keyboards.
If I have to scan hundreds or even thousands of pages what should I do ?
As I said, those scanners were built for the regular home user, they can`t be used if you want to scan hundreds or even thousands of pages. Actually, you could scan so many pages if you have the time and patience. I remember that I`ve used to scan 1000 or 2000 pages / year back in 2003 when I`ve discovered the benefits of the OCR technology. However they were very time consuming. If you want to scan pages with a regular home scanner it would require as I said a huge amount of time, work and patience. Considering my experience this is no longer an option for me. Sure, for a couple of pages up to 100-200 pages it will work but for thousands of pages...no way, I would never try to do that again.
Do you`ve heard of Presto OCR ?
No I haven`t and you`ve really made me curios considering that I`ve searched for months for OCR software that could ease my work. Considering this I thought that perhaps I am missing something important so I`ve started to search for this software. It`s for the first time when I hear about this software - Presto OCR. So, I`ve tried to search for more reviews or info and all I could find was a 2001 or even 2000 old review such as those from CNET. Never heard of them, and they simply don`t exist in search engines. Even if they would exist, I couldn`t say something about them as I`ve never tried them. Maybe it`s an old company that no longer exist ? Who knows...
Can you suggest me a very good ocr software that converts given files to editable word files ?
Sure I can, actually as I said at the beginning of this article, I`ve wrote a complete article about ocr software but let me repeat everything once again. I`ve tried OmniPage and Readiris back in 2003 and later in 2009 and they worked. I also tried Abbyy FineReader Professional and it worked even better so that`s why I am recommending Abbyy FineReader. It could also depend on what scanner you`re using maybe some scanners will work better with other ocr programs. You`ve probably want to try OmniPage, Readiris and Abbyy FineReader and see which one of them works best with your scanner regarding the accuracy level. All of them will offer free trial versions so you should try them all.
What worked for me ? As I said, Abbyy FineReader was the best for me.
It had the highest level of accuracy and the results with this software were very good. However, this doesn`t help you very much if you need to scan a lot of pages, right ? That`s why I was recommending everyone the greatest and the fastest ocr scanner, I am talking about Fujitsu ScanSnap read more here. I used Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 which can scan hundreds of pages in less than an hour, approximately 20 pages / minute. You can scan thousands of pages in one day.
I`ve paid 800 or 900 dollars 2 years ago but now I guess it`s around 500-600 or even less...and the license for Abbyy FineReader ( only the software ) it`s around 130 euros or almost 200 dollars. If I would need to scan thousands of pages and convert them to popular formats such as word, excel, powerpoint I would choose a Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 or even a better model depending on what you need. I can see that it can also scan files and send them to an iPhone/iPad or even scan to cloud such as ``Scan to Evernote, Google Docs and/or SugarSync``.
If you need to deal with thousands of pages using a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner that comes integrated with Abbyy FineReader is the way to go. I am not affiliated with any of these products I am just talking from my own experience and this is my personal opinion. You don`t have to trust me, go ahead and search on YouTube or read reviews on Google. When I`ve read about it for the first time I thought it was a joke...
