How do I PREVENT OCR from converting handwriting in a mostly text document?

[Melissa274923537eba]

I DO NOT want to convert handwriting to text, but whenever I try to OCR a document that has some handwriting on it, the OCR function ruins the handwriting by converting it into nonsense characters. Is there a way to prevent this and only convert the typewritten text?

[S. S]

Hi @Melissa274923537eba,

Hope you are doing well. Sorry for your experience.

Would you mind sharing the name of the application you are using? Are you referring to Acrobat Reader Mobile, Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Pro DC, or Adobe Scan?

Please respond with your application name so we can assist you accordingly.

Look forward to hearing from you.

-Souvik

[Warren330599978eib]

Hi Souvik,

I am not the original poster, but have that problem with Adobe Pro

Warren

[Bernd Alheit]

Try the forum for Adobe Acrobat.

[try67]

You can't stop Acrobat from scanning a certain area on the page, but you can prevent it from modifying the page, if you select the "Editable Text & Images" option when running Text Recognition on the file.

[Melissa274923537eba]

Hello!

I wasn't initially notified that someone replied to my post, but to answer your question, I use Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

It recently stopped converting handwriting after the last update, so it might be solved. But before that, nothing I did helped, even selecting "editable text and images" as suggested below.

Thanks!

[S. S]

Hi @Melissa274923537eba,

Thank you for letting us know that the recent update has fixed the issue for you.

-Souvik

[madhu34654889b5w0]

Can you help me, So if ocr handwritten characters working with adobe acrobat pro. then do we get that sdk with enterprise version or not?

[S. S]

Hi @madhu34654889b5w0,

Thanks for writing in! If you are on an Enterprise license, I recommend checking with your IT team if they have locked down on any features.

If you are using Acrobat API tools, you can refer to this page for more info on the SDK: OCR PDF | How Tos | PDF Services API | Adobe PDF Services

Hope this helps.

-Souvik

[Ailogic39018167k4fl]

when I use adobe acrobat pro, even though am not able to get proper handwritten characters after conversion.

[S. S]

Hi @Ailogic39018167k4fl 

Thanks for writing in!

So, OCR recognizes text from scanned images to make them editable.

It can guarantee proper recognition of handwritten text, as they cannot always be substituted with the fonts available in the system.

Please feel free to add your suggestions here: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/ to ensure it reaches the dev team for review and future implementations.

-Souvik

[David38181998hhdm]

Is there an answer to this question? I have a PDF where I want to convert the typed text into editable text but I do not want it to convert the handwritten notes from the scanned doc.  I did see that the original poster stated Acrobat stopped converting their handwritten text due to a potential software update.  Unfortunately that has not been the case for me so Acrobat converts my handwritten notes into gibberish. Does a workaround exist so Acrobat will only convert the typed text?

[S. S]

Hi @David38181998hhdm,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

Would you mind sharing a sample PDF where you experienced this issue?

Since you mentioned a difference in experience from the original poster, it would be beneficial for us to test the issue in-house for further investigation.

Also, please ensure you are on the latest version of Acrobat for the best experience.

-Souvik