Applying OCR to PDF files

Can I use Acrobat Standard or Pro 9 to apply OCR to existing PDF files of statements(scanned to .tiff @ 600DPI and converted to PDF)?
Also, can I do it in batches?
Thanks

Yes, using Acrobat 9 (both Std and Pro) you can do this in a batch mode(Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text in Multiple Files using OCR...).

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Applying filters to pdf files in Motion causes pixelization-why???

I have a mult-layered map of Europe made in Illustrator and all layers imported as separate pdf files in Motion 4. But when I apply any filters to the pdf files…they become severely pixelated…they look terrible.
How come this only happens with pdf files and not with any other format.
Can pdf files not handle effects of any kind in Motion?

Assuming you are scaling up your vector layers and you have fixed resolution turned off. Applying a filter rasterizes the layer before it gets transformed, i.e., scaled - that's the reason. The solution is to apply the filter to a group containing the layer so that it is scaled first, then the filter is applied.

Applying backgrounds to PDF files

Using Mac OS X 10.5 and Adobe CS3 Design Premium.
Acrobat will not allow me to apply a background file or color to a pdf file that I created on the Mac. I'm using the Apple Numbers program and thought something might be wrong with the pdf creation, so I tried creating the pdf 1) through the Mac "Save as PDF" setting and then 2) selecting the Adobe PDF 8.0 printer setting and it still makes no difference.
Interestingly I took the pdf file from the Mac to Windows and I still cannot apply a background. This makes me think there's something wrong in creating Mac pdf files.
I've just converted to the Mac and this functionality had worked fine in the Windows world.
I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

The background image file is a pdf file and it works properly in the Windows environment, so I don't think that's the problem.
After some more testing, my guess is that it's a Apple iWork bug. Interestingly, when using Windows applications in Fusion (XP pro) on my Mac, I can print to the pdf printer, move the file to my Mac desktop, run Acrobat Pro for Mac and I can apply the background. However when I create any pdf files from Apple Numbers or Pages, I cannot apply backgrounds.
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Can't print scanned pdf files Xerox 3450 Adobe Pro and Reader 9

I have a user that cannot print PDF's made up of scanned images to a network printer.
The job goes to the printer and spools up but hangs at either 64kb or 255kb and then errors out.
Even if I print just one page, it does the same thing.
Folks with Acrobat Pro 8 or Reader 8 can print the same file to the same printer with no problems.
OS: XP
Network Printer: Xerox Phaser 3450 PS
Adobe: Reader 9.1.3 and Acrobat Professional 9.1.3
I have tried the following:
On the Xerox 3450 PS Printer:
- disabling Advanced Printing Options
- changing Post script options to: EPS, optimize for speed, optimize for portablity
- reloading the printer drivers
- unmapping/remapping the printer on the customer's system.
In the Reader and Acrobat Pro print options:
- print only Document rather than Document and Markups
- print as image
- unchecked 'convert to true type1'
- changed options to Send for each page, send by range,
- tried using Language level 2
- reinstalling Adobe Reader 9
This happens once the customer is upgraded to Adobe Reader 9. If I disable the 'Advanced Printer options' he can print OCR/Text PDF files but cannot print even a single page Scanned image PDF file. The spooler hangs at 255kb and then the print job errors out.
I confirmed this same issue on multiple machines and on other Xerox 3450 printers on multiple print servers. It is the same for Adobe Reader 9 and Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.
The machines and users are in different parts of the country on different print servers but the symptoms are the same: after being upgraded to Adobe Reader 9.1.3 or Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.1.3 they cannot send certain PDF files (so far just scanned image files) to a Xerox 3450 PS network printer.
Any suggestions on what to try next would be appreciated.

This problem plagued me for several weeks, until I found a solution that has allowed me to print scanned documents as quickly as a text document.
I have confirmed this worked on several network X3450 printers using Adobe Reader 9.1.3 and Adobe Acrobat Professional v9.1.3
In the Reader and Acrobat Pro print options:
    Click on the Advanced button and uncheck "Print as image" if it's checked.
    Click on "Let printer determine colors" to enable this option
    Click OK and Print.
After making this change, the document queued up and printed as fast a any text document printed.
I had a single page scanned text document which was about 19 KB, but when sent to the printer, the spooler grew from 10 MB to 50 MB to 80 MB, until an error occurred. Like you I tried many combinations until one worked. Then it was a matter of figuring out which setting was primarily responsible for allowing it to print quickly.
Most likely the problem is with the raster image processor (RIP) within Adobe Reader and Acrobat. By selecting the option to "Let the printer determine colors", it passes that part of the processing over to the RIP within the printer. Since the X3450 is not a color printer, the information is easily converted to grayscale and printed.
I'm still trying to absorb the information in the articles I have read so far, and I welcome any discussion about this from those more knowledgeable than I.
I hope this fix works for you as it did for me. I made a lot of happy customers once they were able to print since most of their documents are scanned rather than created with Acrobat.

Acrobat Pro 9 - Disable thumbnail preview in PDF file icons on Desktop

After upgrading to Acrobat Pro 9, the file icons of PDF files on my Windows 7 desktop changed to showing a thumbnail preview. I want to get the standard PDF file icon back for all PDF files. Can someone please tell me how?
Thanks.

Did you ever find an answer for this??? I had the same issue and was searching for an answer. I saw this and since I fixed mine I thought I would tell you what I did. Also, in case someone else finds this and needs an answer.
Opened Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options
Go to the View tab
Check "Always show icons, never thumbnails"
Hit Apply
All your PDF files on your desktop should now show with the generic PDF icon.
Reverse this to get the preview icon "thumbnails".

Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 Pdf files will not open normally

This applies to all Pdf files.
Double click or right click>click "open."
Receive: Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the file. Would you like to install Adobe Acrobat Reader now?
I had Adobe Reader 9. Experienced problem described above. Uninstalled and installed version 8. Same problem.
I have three computers with only one with this problem. PC Windows XP SP3.
Please advise.
Robert.

I have opened: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/public/diagnostics/Acrobat.html I click on test page and it downloads Acro_Test.pdf 5..8kb -- psu.edu,then I open the page, the hour glass comes on and goes off without ever opening. The Reader software in my program file.
Don't keep sending the same message. it does'nt work
Paul
From: kglad
To: ps walker
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 2:43 PM
Subject: Adobe Acrobat Reader x11.0.02 will not open
Re: Adobe Acrobat Reader x11.0.02 will not open
created by kglad in Downloading, Installing, Setting Up - View the full discussion

Scanned and OCR'd PDF--OCR content is not indexed

I am setting up a new SharePoint 2013 install, and have put a handful files in a doc library to test search. The content has been indexed, and I can find the content inside many files and file types without issue--including "native" PDF files.
However, it doesn't seem to index the content of a scanned and OCR'd (text with image overlay) PDF. I have verified that the text is indeed in the OCR text by copying and pasting phrases, and I also confirmed that the crawl log shows the file as successfully
crawled. The filename is also indexed.
So... it would seem that the SharePoint 2013 indexer does not index the text in scanned and OCR'd PDF files. Am I missing something? Can anyone else confirm this behavior?
Thanks!
Ryan

To clarify:
- From what I've read, iFilters can still be installed, but as Mikael said, they can't override the built-in file format handlers in 2013. 2013 has a built-in handler for PDFs, whereas previous versions required a PDF iFilter for indexing PDFs that have
text content. If one could install the Adobe PDF iFilter in 2013 successfully, it would resolve the issue in this thread, but PDF iFilters don't work in 2013.
- Aquaforest makes a product that OCRs PDF files. That takes an image-only PDF and makes the
file searchable, but it is not an indexer. Rather, it enables an index engine to make a big
collection of OCR'd PDF files searchable via a search engine.
- The built-in PDF handler in 2013 does index native PDFs. It does
not index OCR'd PDF files.
So, that's the issue for which I submitted the ticket to Microsoft. In our case, we don't need to OCR our PDF files--they are already OCR'd. But they don't show up in searches.
(Regarding Aquaforest... I've talked with someone there previously--for a non-SharePoint DMS--and they seem to make a cool product, but I don't have any personal experience using it.)

How do i compress a .pdf file

How Do I Compress A . pdf File

The PDF format itself contains significant amounts of compression applied to all PDF file contents. One can compress a PDF file into a ZIP file, but that ZIP file cannot be directly opened by the Adobe Reader.
- Dov

Convert and combine many image files into a pdf file?

I have about 250 png and jpg files in a directory, and would like to convert and combine them into a pdf file.
I wonder what steps to do that in Acrobat Adobe 9 in Windows?
Requirements are:
They are named in the order of 0000.png, 0001.jpg, ..., 0250.png, in which I would like to create the pages of the resulting pdf file.
Also there may be some numbers (such as neither 0010.png nor 0010.jpg exists) missing, but still I would like the images be in the same order after creation of a pdf file.
I would like the pages in the resulting pdf file look to have the same or similar size.
But the numbers of pixels of the image files are different. Some are about 2000 x 3500 pixels, and some are about 800 x 1200 pixels.
I also would like to have control of the spatial resolution such as the dpi parameter
I also would like to OCR the pdf file (the images are scanned raster images).
I would like the resulting pdf file to take reasonable storage size on my disk.

You don't say what version of Acrobat you are using, but I expect you could do it with Acrobat XI's Actions feature. Maybe even in 10.0. Since this is an enterprise deployment forum, I suggest you find a better forum and ask about Actions and Batch Processing.
hth,
Ben

I have paid for Adobe Acrobat XI Pro OCR but it will not recognise a letter in the serial number for me to update my adobe account and any of the programs I have tried using to convert a PDF file on a Mac to a word doc it is converting file with funny sym

I have been supplied info in an email to copy and paste for a new product purchase "Adobe Acrobat XI Pro OCR" but am unsure how and where to copy and paste to. There is also a link below the serial number. I have tried entering serial number into my Adobe ID but it is not recognising one of the letters in the 24 Digit serial number??? Also I have tried other products previously downloaded to convert a 7 page PDF file on my Mac and convert it to a Word doc but everything I have tried is converting the file to display some text correctly but also displays random symbols and fonts in place of the handwritten info filled in on the form... also getting blank pages included instead of the info??? Would appreciate some help... I am older generation and not always tech savvy, and it is doing my head in haha.

Hi Jock,
I've checked your account, and all is well there. Please make sure that you're logging in with the same Adobe ID/password that you used when you signed up.
Then, clear the browser cache, and try logging in directly to https://cloud.acrobat.com.
Please let us know how it goes.
Best,
Sara

How can users who have Acrobat Reader only save scanned pdf files so that the text on them is searchable using ctrl-F? I just use the recognize text with ocr feature in the full version of Acrobat and this seem to do the trick. Reader doesn't work!

Our users have scanned pdf files they want to be able to search using ctrl-f. I got them to be searchable by doing a recognize text using ocr with Acrobat Professional vesion 8. They want to know if they can make the files searchable with Acrobat Reader only or if they need the full Acrobat Professional software to make the files searchable.
Thanks for the help!!
Ken K. - 2191

To clarify a bit they need to have Adobe Acrobat, not Adobe Reader. Reader has not been associated with the Acrobat name for 3 or more versions. The process you are asking about is a creation process - the purpose of Acrobat - and NOT a reading feature.

Acrobat freezes when I OCR pdf files. How do I fix this?!?

I just downloaded Adobe Acrobat 11 yesterday onto my MacBook Air. When I try to OCR documents Abobe semi-freezes, meaning that it won't let me save what it has just OCR'd, it won't let me close, it won't even let me minimize the window. I say "semi-freezes" because it actually does ask me if I want to "save," but trying to do that, or trying to decline to do that and close, is futile. The only way I can get out of this is to shut the computer down completely and then turn it back on again. This is a disaster because 90% of my job involves working with PDF files and I can't work unless I can OCR these documents. They are numerous, voluminous, and use many complex terms.
Please give me step-by-step instructions as to how to fix this, and please assume I know absolutely ZERO technical things about computers. Many thanks. Pete

Moved to https://forums.adobe.com/community/acrobat/scanning_%26_ocr.
I have used Acrobat 11 on a Macbook Air using both OX X,9 and X.10 without issue. Can I ask which version of Acrobat 11 you are using and what version of OS X? Additionally, are you seeing a freeze or a spinning pizza wheel of death. I have an older machine in which the spinning pizza wheel occurs whenever it feels like and I can wait for minutes before it returns control to me.

Resizing Multiple Page PDF file For OCR

On my Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac with OSX 10.8.5, I am using either Acrobat Professional 9 and Acrobat Professional 10 to assemble PDF documents from a significant number of legacy page and map images (tiff). Unfortunately, it intreprets the tiff files to create a document that's about 36.7" by 50.06" in page size. Unfortunately, this size is too large to run through the OCR. I have tried print to a pdf on both Acrobat Professional 9 and Acrobat Professional 10. When I attempt to it tells me I can't save to a pdf from print. Neither the tiffs nor PDFs that I made from them are password protected.
The suggested solutions, which I have found, do not solve my problem. Needless to say, simply printing them at a reduced size does not solve the problem of not being able to to run them through the OCR. Also, I have numerous pages, which makes resizing them individually in Photoshop simply too time consuming as a solution. Finally, neither I nor the company I work for have the money for third-party software that costs very much, over 80 to 100 dollars simply to solve this single problem.
How can I scale down the page size of either a multipage PDF file or as a batch of individual files within either Acrobat Professional 9 or 10 so I can run them through the optical character reader (OCR)?
Alternatively, is there software (Photoshop?) that I can use to batch resize the tiff files?

Bill@VT asked:
"Is the problem the size or the resolution? You are saying it is too large
to run through OCR, but I am not clear what the "large" refers to."
Being 36.07 inches by 50.06 inches, the image file it is too large in page size (inches) to run through the OCR. When I tried to OCR it, I get the following error message:
"Acrobat could not perform recognition (OCR) on this page because:
This page is larger than the maximum page size of 45 inches by 45 inches"
Also asked:
1. "When you say you tried to print, was that to the Adobe PDF printer?
Yes, that was to the Adobe PDF printer.
2. "Did you set the printer properties to compress the file to a smaller size?"
No, I did not set the printer to compress the file in order to make the file size smaller in terms of bytes.
3. "Have you tried printing the PDF you created to a new PDF using the shrink to fit option?"
Yes, I set the printer to creat a new PDF using the shrink to fit option in order to create a file that was smaller in terms of page size (inches) instead of file size (bytes). When I did it, I received an error message that stated:
"Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported. Instead choose File >Save."

How to apply passwords to existing PDF files?

My MS-Access app creates about 1000 pdf files. Each file is required to have a unique password and will be emailed as attachments via a VBA procedure in Outlook 2007.    Certificates are not feasible, despite my objections. So I am looking at having to manually set the 'Open File' password for each file individually. The files are created in an Access '97 VBA procedure (by sending the results of an Access Report to the Adobe PDF Printer). Is there any way with VBA (either Access '97 or Outlook '07) to apply a unique security policy or otherwise set a unique 'Open File' password for each of the files, either as they are being created and saved - or after the fact?
I can create an Action in PRO X and manually select all the files and set the passwords. I can then encrypt and password-protect all the files at once - but they all get the same passwords - ok for 'Permissions', but not for 'Open'. Can Action fileds be modified from VBA? Or is there a way to creat an Action that can modify another Action? For example, if there is an Action named "Apply Pswd" which will apply a predefined common set of passwords to all files selected, can there be an Action, named "Apply Unique Pswd" that will update the 'Open' password field in the "Apply Common Pswd" Action as well as the name of the individual file that is to have that password? Sort of like passing parameters to a function. i.e.:
"Apply Unique Pswd":
1. Get next .pdf file from directory.
2. Get next password (whether caluclated or read from a list).
3. Open the "Apply Common Pswd" Action.
4. Change the 'Open' password and the name of the file to select (the 'Permissions' password does not change).
5. Execute the "Apply Common Password" Action - which at this time is only affecting a single file.
6. Verify the 'Open' password (or bypass the verify step, if possible).
7. Loop through all files in the directory.
   or
3.   Don't use Actions - save the .pdf file in such a way that the common 'Permissions' password and the current 'Open' password are applied to the appropriate file.
3a. Goto 7.
I have also investigated Secure Envelopes in Outlook, but again, it appeas to be a manual procedure to apply unique passwords.
I would greatly appreciate any tips, suggestions, snippits, or ideas - or enlightenment that it is just not possible to create .pdf files with passwords in VBA nor to use VBA to set the passwords post-creation.

usna73tx
I am looking for similar thing, I need to apply a password and permissions to thousands of PDF files & I do not want to open them all manually.
Did you ever find a solution?

How to apply special right to the PDF file using the LiveCycle Rights Management Server.?

How to apply special right to the PDF file using the LiveCycle Rights Management Server.?
I want to edit bar code field data using Adobe Reader. Bar Code field was designed and data was changing using Acrobat X1 Professional (Trial Version). But can't do so in adobe reader.

I think that product has nothing to do with it. You would use LiveCycle Reader Extensions.

Applying OCR to PDF files

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