(2012-07-12) Free Mac Ocr

Want to scan a 50pg document and do OCR on it (under MacOs X), but not a big enough need that I want to pay for it.

For $29, Vel O C Raptor uses the Google-sponsored OCRopus OCR engine.

Hmm, my PhotoSmart scanning software might do this as an option in the scan-to-PDF process...

• or maybe not - will just have to try

GoogleDocs may offer OCR when uploading a PDF.

O C R Kit free trial.

Pdf Ocr X free for 1 page, $30 for unlimited.

Free Ocr service just does 1 page.

Update:

• blech, my document feeder is only handling ~4pgs at a time, because of this thick legal stock
  • feh, even then some pages get skipped, have to re-do some scans
• doesn't look like my scanner software has any OCR built into it...
• so I have 11 PDF files (plus 3 re-do single-page files), trying to figure out how to merge them in MacOs X Preview app. Wow, nice undocumented UI, ptui. Finally got it done: 44pgs, 3.8MB.
• Try the GoogleDocs upload/OCR - arg max of 2MB!
  • deleting pages in Preview is easier, so quickly make 2 separate files of 22pgs (just under 2MB) each.
  • seems to have worked
    • looks like every page of input gives you that scanned page, followed by the OCR text.
    • lots of random use of Courier font in outcome, considering the original is all 1 simple non-Courier font.