In a previous blog entry I showed how you can take a scanned document and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) the document. This is turn will allow you to be able to search in the document for words or phrases. In the AEC industry we heavily rely on scanned documents. To be able to search across those documents is extremely important when trying to find valuable project information. I am going to use this blog entry to show you how you can you the Batch Processing feature in Adobe Acrobat to OCR multiple documents at once.
To batch OCR multiple documents, you will need to navigate to the Advanced Editing Menu – Document Processing – Batch Processing as shown below.
The Batch Sequences window will open and you will want to choose “New Sequence” as shown below.
Adobe Acrobat will then ask you for a Sequence Name. In this case I am going to call it Batch OCR and click OK.
The next screen will allow you to setup the process. This is where you will define the action you want to take, batch OCR in this case, the document or folders you want to run it on, and the desired output location. The first step is you will choose “Select Commands” from this window.
From the Edit Sequence window you will choose “Recognize Text Using OCR” which is about half way down the list and click Add. In this same window you can select the process and edit any of the OCR settings you choose and click ok.
This will take you back to the Main Edit Batch Sequence Screen. From this screen you will now need to choose first what you want to run OCR on. As you can see from the drop down you have several options to choose from. I like to setup a folder that contains the documents that I want to run OCR on.
Once you select what you want to run OCR on then you need to select the Output options. Again, I like to setup a folder where the output will be saved.
Your last option in this menu is to select your Output Options. I can change the Naming of the files and also set the Output Format.
Once you have made the appropriate setting then simply click OK which will take you back to the Batch Sequences Menu. You will now see your new sequence in this menu.
Simply select the Batch OCR sequence and click on Run Sequence and OK and this will start the Batch OCR Process. Once the process has completed you can then navigate to the output location and find the documents that you have run Optical Character Recognition on.
This is a great feature and by using the Batch Processing option it should save you a lot of time. Take the time to look at the other Batch Processing options as you may find other processes that will be beneficial to your current work process.
Have Fun,
Jonathan
Thank you very much for saving me time and teaching me a new trick.