Comparison Between OneDrive and Acrobat for Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology converts scanned images, PDFs, or photos of text into machine-readable formats. OCR can digitize documents, enable full-text search, and automate data extraction.

Audience

This article is intended for students, faculty, and staff.

Platform

Microsoft OneDrive, Adobe Acrobat

Microsoft OneDrive

OneDrive supports Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for scanned documents uploaded from multifunction printers or copiers. OCR then converts images of text into searchable and selectable content. This section explains how OCR works in OneDrive and how to access searchable text.

  • OCR is automatic for supported file types; no manual activation is required.
  • Supported file types include .bmp, .png, .jpeg, .jpg, .jfif, .arw, .cr2, .crw, .erf, .gif, .mef, .mrw, .nef, .nrw, .orf, .pef, .raw, .rw2, .rw1, .sr2, .tif, .tiff, .heic, .heif, .ari, .bay, .cap, .cr3, .dcs, .dcr, .drf, .eip, .fff, .iiq, .k25, .kdc, .mef, .mos, .ptx, .pxn, .raf, .rwl, .sr2, .srf, .srw, .x3f, .dng, .tiff, and .pdf (scanned and hybrid).
  • Embedded images in docx, pptx, xlsx are extracted and scanned.
  • For best results, ensure scans are high quality and text is clear.
  • Images must be less than 50 MB.

Upload and Search

  1. Scan your document using a multifunction printer or copier that saves files as PDF or image formats.
  2. Upload the scanned file to OneDrive or a SharePoint document library.
  3. Wait for OCR processing to complete (processing occurs automatically in the background).
  4. Use the search bar in OneDrive or SharePoint to find text within the scanned document.

Open and Edit Text

  1. Locate the scanned PDF in OneDrive.
  2. Open the file in Microsoft Word (right-click the file > Open in Word).
  3. Word will attempt to extract editable text from the scanned PDF.
  4. Review and edit the extracted text as needed.

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat includes built-in OCR tools that convert scanned or image-based PDFs into searchable and editable documents. This section explains how to apply OCR using both the desktop and online versions of Adobe Acrobat.

Desktop Application

  1. Open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat.
  2. In the right pane, select Edit PDF.
  3. Acrobat automatically applies OCR to the document and converts it into a fully editable copy.

Online Version

  1. In Adobe Acrobat Online, go to Convert > Recognize Text with OCR.
  2. Select the PDF file you want to process.
  3. Acrobat automatically applies OCR to the document and converts it into a fully editable copy.

See also: OCR software for PDFs (adobe.com)

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