Convert PDF to Images and OCR

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#1

I have found some PDF documents that are scanned copies of WW2 era US Navy deck logs. My grandfather was a member of the crew. The documents are mostly typed on typewriters. I would like to OCR the documents. I could purchase 3rd party PDF apps but first wanted to see if I could use Live Text to do the same job.

It seems to me that I must make each page an image file for Live Text to work. Once I have a picture I can the use the Extract Text from an Image. At that point I am not certain how to create a PDF from the photo and text.

Just wondering if the Automators team had run into this?

Thanks!

#2

Not an automated solution, but what I’d do is upload the PDF to Google Drive (you need a gmail account) and then open with Google Docs — this’ll do the OCR and it’s very good. Then download the Google Doc as a PDF (the text will be selectable) or as a .docx or .rft file that can be opened by Apple’s Pages.