We’d like to summarise the disadvantages of using OCR in PDF from a free online converter while highlighting the advantages of using quality OCR from our specialist.
Disadvantages of amateur OCR from free online converters:
- The exact number of source words cannot be reliably determined, so a more accurate price for the translation cannot be established.
- Converting from free online converters often leads to poor quality output where the document’s formatting can fall apart and parts of the translation may not be visible.
- Correcting faulty formatting at the end of the translation process requires more time and increases the price.
- The delivery date of the order may be at risk.
- The extra work involved in formatting the target document would result in a significantly higher price.
Benefits of professional OCR provided by a specialist translation agency:
- The exact number of source words can be determined, resulting in a more accurate price for the translation.
- Professionally created conversion into an editable format ensures seamless formatting and display of the translation.
- Working with an agency minimises the risk of errors and poor quality output.
- Guaranteed delivery date.
- The overall cost of the translation is lower, since there is no need to correct faulty formatting at the end of the translation process.
The key difference in quality between amateur and professional OCR is that free online converters do not usually convert text in non-editable images, and they don’t allow for manual resolution of text and image boxes. This leads to the graphic layout of an amateur converted document falling apart. In contrast, our OCR specialist will select the subsequent OCR workflow based on its rough conversion in terms of the best possible output. This means that he’ll select the most suitable target format (DOCX, PPTX, etc.) for the specific source documents as well as the most suitable OCR tool (or a combination of such tools) based on experience.
Simply put: the better the quality of the source, the better the result. If you aren’t sure about the origin of your Word document and suspect it might be an amateur OCR, our coordinators will be glad to give you an assessment from our specialists when creating a price quote. If you have the original PDF file with the scanned text, feel free to send it to us directly.
