Skip to main content
Participant
September 3, 2024
Question

Batch OCR multiple files that are signed

  • September 3, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 741 views

Hi,

 

I have roughly 10,000 drawings that have been signed electronically in adobe.   These now need to be OCR recogonised which I am unable to do because of the signatures.  I assume I will have to flatten them first which will keep an image of the signatures only, which is fine.  Is there a way to do this as a batch as I am struggling with preflight!?

1 reply

S_S
Community Manager
Community Manager
January 29, 2025

 

Hi @kelly_9892,

 

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

 

In case you are still looking for a solution, I have two suggestions you might want to try:

Method 1: Using an Action in Acrobat (Best for Large Batches)

  1. Open Acrobat
  2. Go to "All Tools" → Click "Action Wizard"
  3. Click "New Action"
  4. In the “Choose Tools to Add” section:
    • Under "Pages", select "Flatten" (this will rasterize the electronic signatures)
    • Under "Recognize Text", select "OCR" → Set your OCR settings
  5. Click "Save" and give the action a name
  6. Run the Action on a folder containing all your PDFs

Method 2: Using Preflight in Batch Mode (If Preflight Issues are Resolved)

If you prefer Preflight, try:

  1. Open Acrobat
  2. Go to "All Tools" → "Print Production" → "Preflight"
  3. In the Preflight panel, search for "Flatten annotations and form fields"
  4. Click "Fix" to test on one file
  5. If it works, go to "Action Wizard"Create New Action
  6. Add the Preflight Fixup + OCR steps, then save & run it on all files

This should process all your files automatically. 

 

Hope this helps.


-Souvik