When researching educational topics, you can come across scanned PDFs or images containing important research data. Now, you may face a problem while extracting the text from these scanned files. Worry not, as we have a solution for you in the form of a PDF editor with an OCR feature that can help you extract text from scanned PDFs.
With the help of the tool that we are going to recommend in this article, you can avoid any restrictions you face while doing research work. Keep reading this detailed guide to learn the various methods to extract text from PDF.
Method 1. How to Extract Text from a Scanned PDF Image Using OCR
UPDF is the best tool available if you’re looking to extract text from PDF images in multiple ways. This tool allows you to extract words from scanned documents by converting them to text files or performing OCR supporting 38+ languages. Moreover, you can also perform PDF-to-text conversion if required.
You might encounter scanned PDFs while searching for any information. Sometimes, you need to use that information but can’t copy it because it is scanned. Here, the OCR feature is of great help in making scanned PDFs editable. You can even make image-based PDF editable while using UPDF to extract text from PDF images. Now, let’s head to the steps and learn how to extract data from scanned PDFs:
Step 1: Import the Scanned PDF and Enter OCR Mode
To start following these steps, ensure you have UPDF installed on your device. Access the tool on your desktop screen, and hit the “Open File” option to import scanned PDF. As you can see, the contents within this PDF are not editable. After that, move to the right-side panel and press the “Recognize Text Using OCR” button. Afterward, ensure to select the “Searchable PDF” under the “Document Type.”
Step 2: Customize the Settings for Output Results
On the right-side panel, maintain the “Layout,” “Document Language,” and “Image Resolution.” However, you can set the image resolution to 72, 150, or 300 dpi. Also, customize the “Page Range” to only turn the required pages in editable format.
Now, hit the “Perform OCR” button and save the file on your system. You can now use this file to copy the text data or images from the PDF.
Method 2. How to Extract Text from PDF by Converting
However, if your PDF is not in the scanned format, but you still need to extract the lengthy data, you can use the UPDFs conversion feature. With UPDF, you can convert PDFs to over 9 formats, and converting to text is one of them. So, read the guided steps to convert PDF to Text:
Step 1: Launch Tool and Enter Export PDF Mode
Once you have launched the UPDF and are on the main interface, tap the “Open File” button and add the PDF you need to extract data from. Afterward, hover the cursor on the right-side panel and click the “Export PDF” button to open the extended menu on the left side.
Step 2: Choose Text as An Output Format
Here, hit the “Text (.txt)” option to open a pop-up menu for customization. If needed, you can enable the text recognition here and select “Document Language” accordingly. After this, set the “Page Range” if needed and hit the “Export” button to extract the PDF contents in a text file.
What Makes UPDF the Best Tool to Extract Text from PDF
1. OCR Text Recognition with Smart Results
Users can utilize this OCR conversion feature to extract data from scanned documents or images when they are the source of information or not editable. Moreover, this tool has the ability to recognize text present within images to copy important text from them with the support of a wide range of languages. You can also customize the layout of PDFs while performing OCR, including text and pictures only, text over the page image, and text under the page image to fulfill different requirements.
2. Convert PDF to Any File Format Accurately
UPDF allows you to convert PDF documents to your preferred format with a single click. Users can change their PDFs to any Office format, including Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Additionally, you can use this tool to extract words from PDF after converting the file to text format. Batch conversion is a big plus and saves your time a lot.
3. Edit Any Elements in Your PDF Documents
This diverse tool allows you to edit the text, images, links, watermarks, headers & footers, and even PDF backgrounds. In this way, users can select text boxes, copy data, and extract it accordingly. In addition to that, you can also remove specific unwanted text within your PDFs or add links to it. UPDF also allows you to change the font, font size, text color, size, and alignment before extracting it.
5. Annotate PDF Feature for Personalization
Annotation tools play an essential role in making UPDF stand out from the other markup tools. There is a diverse range of annotation options available for users, such as users can add signatures, stamps, sticky notes, 100+ stickers, and any shapes to their PDFs.
5. UPDF AI
UPDF AI is an intelligent assistant for managing PDFs within UPDF software. With the integration of ChatGPT, this tool can help you summarize, translate, and explain the text written in your document. Furthermore, this AI chatbot has two features, “Chat” and “Ask PDF,” to let users inquire about any problem they are facing in understanding the PDF content.
Other Notable Key Features of UPDF
- Compress PDF: You can compress the size of your PDF files to maximum, high, medium, or low as per needs. This is to meet the requirements while uploading PDFs on online tools.
- Flatten PDFs: Save your PDFs as flattened documents using the UPDFs built-in feature. However, you can also choose to flatten the cropped pages, watermarks, annotations, and forms.
- Crop PDF Pages: UPDF also lets users crop the pages with custom margin controls. Moreover, you can also enable the option to constrain properties within this PDF file.
- Organize Pages: Users can also organize pages after applying other settings to them. These options allow you to insert, replace, extract, split, and rotate PDF pages.
Comparing UPDF with Adobe Acrobat
UPDF and Adobe Acrobat are a few of the widely used text editing software that allow you to perform different tasks on PDFs per your requirements. However, when it comes to extracting text from a PDF, UPDF turns out to be the best tool. That is because it offers some additional features than Adobe Acrobat. For example, if you want to display a slideshow of a PDF, you can’t do it using Acrobat.
Moreover, UPDF has built-in AI features such as summarize, explain, and translate, which aren’t available in Adobe Acrobat. Also, UPDF allows its users to add 100+ stickers to make their PDFs much more attractive, whereas these many stickers aren’t available in Acrobat. Moreover, using UPDF, users can convert their PDFs to a variety of different formats, but the conversion options are limited in Acrobat.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve good enough knowledge to extract text from PDF with the help of UPDF, utilize this understanding of the tool to facilitate the data extraction process for your research. Moreover, UPDF offers around 63% discount to students and professionals related to the education sector. So, download this tool now to avail yourself of this offer and get rid of any limitations you face while researching for projects.