Error when doing OCR code (5)

[markm14109595]

Hi. I am doing OCR on lots of pdf files. Occasionaly, I get this message and the OCR process stops. Any ideas on how I can get around this?  I am using Adobe Acrobat Pro version 9.  Thank you.

[gary_sc · Accepted solution]

First, if there's anything wrong with your copy of Acrobat, Adobe will do nothing for you because it has reached what is called End of Life. That is, it is no longer on life support, and if it dies, it dies. This is because it's impossible to maintain applications over both platforms on many different OSs. 

Otherwise, what I would STRONGLY recommend you try is to use your scanner's software and not try to use it through Acrobat. Acrobat on the PC uses some software called TWAIN that lets Acrobat use the scanner's software. By using the software directly, you are avoiding the middle-man and may resolve your problem. 

Good luck!

[markm14109595]

Thank you very much.  I tried a version of Adobe Acrobat 12 and found it quite confusing. But I need to look at the PaperStream Capture software (comes with Fujitsu scanner) to see if that will do the OCR.  I really appreciate your quick response.  Thanks, Gary.

[gary_sc]

Many years ago I was faced with having a LOT of pages to scan and not that much time. I owned a flatbed scanner and it was slow going (about 200 pages a day, 250 if I was running well).

A friend offered to loan me his FujiScan, and I gladly accepted. It saved my butt. I was able to get it all scanned with time to spare.

But, here's the catch: The FujiScan software that I think I downloaded from Fuji did poor to OK OCR, but the size of the documents was dreadful. The software kept the original page scan (which can easily be 15-20 MB per page) and did the OCR on top of that. So, what I did was to use Acrobat's OCR conversion, which brought the page size down to a reasonable 80-150 kb. The catch here was that Acrobat was very slow to do this AND, it hogs the computer. So doing something simple, like reading email was not possible because every time Acrobat finished a page, it became the predominant application and jumped in front of what you were reading. So, what I did was when I went to lunch, I did a pack of documents, and when I went home, I did the next pack. When I came in in the morning, everything was ready for me. 

Good luck!

[markm14109595]

Thanks, Gary.  Adobe Acrobat Pro ver 9 does the same.  It won't let you shrink it to the taskbar and hates when you try to start another application.  I think I should try OCR with the PaperStream software that Fujitsu offers with their scanners. That may solve my problem.  In the meantime, someone suggested uninstalling and reinstalling Adobe Acrobat and trying the OCR again.  I'm doing that now.

[gary_sc]

Hi Mark,

No, you missed my point: the FujiScan software did a poor job of OCR, AND it left the files very bloated. It was worth redoing the OCR in Acrobat despite the issues there.

[markm14109595]

Gary: Thanks.  I was thinking I could use the Fujitsu OCR and then run the pdf file again with Acrobat to try to get around the error messge.  But I found another work around.  I extracted and deleted the page that was causing the error.  The OCR then work without fine.  I then brought in the troubled page and will go forward from there.  Thanks, again.  ~mark