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PDF File Mgmt. Question
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Posted by James Thompson
Mar 1, 2021 at 09:37 PM
I concur with the general response you’ve received. Paperport is the perennial standard; haven’t seen a new competitor of note in recent years though I haven’t been looking, but it’s probably good enough. Especially if it comes with your OCR software.
300 DPI is the bare minimum scan density you should set for any kind of acceptable OCR read. 600 DPI probably not necessary, and with some dirty scans 300 can actually clean things up a bit. If you’re scanning a poor-quality print yield will be low anyhow but extraneous smudges or non-intentional “ink” on the page can confuse the OCR software and sometimes I’ve found 300 DPI will reject the flotsam.
Posted by Ken
Mar 1, 2021 at 11:15 PM
James Thompson wrote:
I concur with the general response you’ve received. Paperport is the
>perennial standard; haven’t seen a new competitor of note in recent
>years though I haven’t been looking, but it’s probably good enough.
>Especially if it comes with your OCR software.
>
>300 DPI is the bare minimum scan density you should set for any kind of
>acceptable OCR read. 600 DPI probably not necessary, and with some dirty
>scans 300 can actually clean things up a bit. If you’re scanning a
>poor-quality print yield will be low anyhow but extraneous smudges or
>non-intentional “ink” on the page can confuse the OCR software and
>sometimes I’ve found 300 DPI will reject the flotsam.
This sounds good. Thanks for confirming.
—Ken
Posted by Leib Moscovitz
Mar 2, 2021 at 05:54 PM
With regard to scanning and manipulating PDFs in almost every way imaginable, I very highly recommend PDF-XChange (Tracker Software); they have multiple editions, offering a very wide variety of features at different prices, which address the needs of varied types of users. I might add that their service is splendid, and their software (in all editions) is very reasonably priced.
I don’t know about their OCR, as the edition I use has limited OCR functionality, although they apparently improved this functionality significantly in the newest version. However, for really complex OCR, I recommend very highly ABBYY reader, which, judging from my experience and that of some of my colleagues who deal with such things in extension, leaves many if not all competitors in the dust.
Finally with regard to organizing your PDF files, a trick which I found extremely helpful - assuming, of course, that you organize the files in regular directories and subdirectories rather than, say, importing them into a program like UltraRecall - is to use the free four-quadrant file manage Qdir. Each quadrant can contain multiple tabs for difference directories, and you can, in effect, organize quadrants by “themes” - say, one quadrant for directories of personal files, another for academic files, another for financial files, etc. Thus, if you scan by default to your desktop, it is very easy to drag and drop the resulting PDFs into appropriate predefined locations by using Qdir’s quadrants as described above.
Posted by Ken
Mar 2, 2021 at 10:45 PM
Leib Moscovitz wrote:
With regard to scanning and manipulating PDFs in almost every way
>imaginable, I very highly recommend PDF-XChange (Tracker Software); they
>have multiple editions, offering a very wide variety of features at
>different prices, which address the needs of varied types of users. I
>might add that their service is splendid, and their software (in all
>editions) is very reasonably priced.
>
>I don’t know about their OCR, as the edition I use has limited OCR
>functionality, although they apparently improved this functionality
>significantly in the newest version. However, for really complex OCR, I
>recommend very highly ABBYY reader, which, judging from my experience
>and that of some of my colleagues who deal with such things in
>extension, leaves many if not all competitors in the dust.
>
>Finally with regard to organizing your PDF files, a trick which I found
>extremely helpful - assuming, of course, that you organize the files in
>regular directories and subdirectories rather than, say, importing them
>into a program like UltraRecall - is to use the free four-quadrant file
>manage Qdir. Each quadrant can contain multiple tabs for difference
>directories, and you can, in effect, organize quadrants by “themes” -
>say, one quadrant for directories of personal files, another for
>academic files, another for financial files, etc. Thus, if you scan by
>default to your desktop, it is very easy to drag and drop the resulting
>PDFs into appropriate predefined locations by using Qdir’s quadrants as
>described above.
Thanks for the additional recommendations. I am familiar with Free Commander, but have not heard of Qdir. Sounds interesting.
—Ken
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 3, 2021 at 08:57 AM
Totally agree on (a) 300 dpi and (b) ABBYY (the Mac version of which is also awesome and embedded in high-quality apps like DEVONthink Office)