Getting an Image

To begin the OCR process, ABBYY FineReader needs to retrieve an image of your document. There are several ways to create an image, including:

Scanning paper documents Opening image files and PDF documents Taking a picture of a text with a camera
 

  1. Make sure that your scanner is connected and turned on.

    Consult your scanner's documentation to ensure it is set up correctly. Be sure to install the software provided with your scanner. Some scanner models must be turned on before the computer is turned on.

  2. Put the page to be scanned into the scanner. If the scanner is equipped with an automatic document feeder, you can put multiple pages into the scanner if you need to process a multi-page document.
  3. Click Scan, or select Scan Pages… from the File menu.

    The scanning dialog box will open. Select the appropriate settings and start scanning. The scanned pages will be added to the Pages window in ABBYY FineReader.

Tip. Typical printed office documents are best scanned in grayscale at 300 dpi.

The quality of OCR results depends on the quality of the source document quality and the selected scanning options. Low image quality may affect recognition results. That's why it is important to correctly customize scanning settings and account for the features of the input document.

For details, see Taking Into Account Some of the Features of Your Paper Document and Image Acquisition Tips.

You can open files in PDF format and recognize finished image files (for details, see Supported Image Formats).

How to open an image or PDF file:

  • In ABBYY FineReader, click Open, or select Open PDF File/Image… from the File menu.

    In the dialog box, select Open image:

    1. Select one or more images.
    2. Specify the page range for a multi-page document.
    3. Enable the Detect page orientation option to automatically detect the page layout when opening images.
    4. Activate the Split facing pages option to automatically split dual pages into separate images when opening images.
    5. Enable the Enable image preprocessing option to perform automated image preprocessing when images are opened.

    Note: When page images are opened or scanned for the first time, they are added to a new FineReader document displayed in the Pages window. Later, when the page images are opened or scanned, they will be added to the bottom of the open FineReader document.

    For details, see ABBYY FineReader Documents.

  • In Windows Explorer, right-click the appropriate image file and select Open in ABBYY FineReader from the shortcut menu.
  • In Microsoft Outlook, select the e-mail message with the image or PDF attachments you wish to open, and then click on the toolbar. In the dialog box that opens, select the files to open.
  • In Microsoft Outlook or Windows Explorer, drag the desired image file into ABBYY FineReader's main window. The image will be added to the current ABBYY FineReader document.

Note: The author of a PDF file may choose to restrict access to it. For example, the author may create a password or restrict certain features, such as the ability to extract text and graphics. To adhere to copyright guidelines, ABBYY FineReader will ask you for a password to open such files.

ABBYY FineReader can perform OCR on images created with a digital camera.

  1. Take a picture of the text.

    Note: Good quality photos are required for successful OCR results.

    For details, see Photographing documents.

  2. Save the photo to your hard disk.
  3. Click the Open button or select Open PDF File/Image… from the File menu.