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Technical Help & Discussion => General Tech Discussion, News & Q&A => Topic started by: KRO on March 22, 2020, 20:33

Title: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: KRO on March 22, 2020, 20:33

Hi, i need to try to update my cv that is some ten years old now.
I have done what google advises and it tells me that it will make the document editable, but it still doesn't work for me.....any advice please

Cheers keith

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: Simon on March 22, 2020, 20:54

Long time no see!

I don't think you can edit a scanned document in Word, as it scans as an image.  How does Google claim to be able to do it?

What you could do is scan the document with an image editor, such as Adobe, then use the Text tool to replace the existing text. 

I'm sure someone will come up with other suggestions, but I've occasionally spent loads of time trying to do something like this, when it would have been quicker to just type the damn thing out again from scratch.

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: GillE on March 22, 2020, 21:12

There's an article on Optical Character Recognition software here (https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-free-ocr-software-tools-to-convert-your-images-into-text-nb/) that might be useful.

 :dunno:

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: KRO on March 24, 2020, 10:21

Quote from: Simon on March 22, 2020, 20:54

Long time no see!

I don't think you can edit a scanned document in Word, as it scans as an image.  How does Google claim to be able to do it?

What you could do is scan the document with an image editor, such as Adobe, then use the Text tool to replace the existing text. 

I'm sure someone will come up with other suggestions, but I've occasionally spent loads of time trying to do something like this, when it would have been quicker to just type the damn thing out again from scratch.

Hi Simon,
                google told me to scan the document as a PDF rather than a JPEG then to click on file in word....then a box opens up telling me that Word will now convert my PDF to an editable Word document saying this may take a while..... i then click ok...( it seems to do it almost instantly) the resulting Word document will be optimised to allow you to edit the text...
but i still cant edit it !!

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: Simon on March 24, 2020, 11:27

Hi Keith,

I've never tried to do this.  What format is the original document in?

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: KRO on March 29, 2020, 15:19

Hi Simon...sorry for the late reply (i'm sure i used to get email notification for active threads)
I'm not really sure a friend of a friend did it for me several years ago...i assumed it was done in word

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: Simon on March 29, 2020, 17:53

Quote from: KRO on March 29, 2020, 15:19

Hi Simon...sorry for the late reply (i'm sure i used to get email notification for active threads)
I'm not really sure a friend of a friend did it for me several years ago...i assumed it was done in word

You may need to click the Notify button to enable email notifications of replies (see below).

To be honest, I don't really know what to suggest on the file conversion, as we can't be certain what the original file was created in.   :dunno:

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: chorleydave on March 30, 2020, 16:58

Several years ago, I tried to do this for a friend. After spending several hours trying to find software to do the job, I gave up and spent less that a hour retyping it in Microsoft Word!

Title: Re: How to make a scanned document editable in word
Post by: KRO on April 03, 2020, 12:38

Quote from: Simon on March 29, 2020, 17:53

You may need to click the Notify button to enable email notifications of replies (see below).

To be honest, I don't really know what to suggest on the file conversion, as we can't be certain what the original file was created in.   :dunno:

Hey Simon thanks for that.....
Chorleydave...yes i think that will be the way to go...many thanks again for the replies

Cheers keith