It's summer and it's hot outside. Want to know what's hot inside the office as well? You've heard of "Searchable PDF," right? Well, let me tell you what it is and why it's HOT!
Scanned paper documents are stored in an image (rather than text) format. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a universal file format for document exchange that preserves all the fonts, formatting, colors, and graphics of any source document (whether it's on paper or from the Web or other electronic sources). Preservation is faithful regardless of the application and platform used to create or view the material. PDF files can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed on a broad range of operating systems by anyone using free Adobe Acrobat Reader or other software.
With scanning software, volumes of legacy paper documents may be converted to PDF so you can search, annotate, publish, and archive all of your information in a digital environment. There are different types of PDF for use when scanning paper-based documents but let's concentrate on "PDF Searchable."
PDF Searchable Image is a PDF image-only document with the addition of a text layer beneath the image. This approach retains the look of the original page while enabling text searchability. PDF Searchable Image files contain two layers: a bitmapped (image) layer and a hidden text layer. The bitmapped layer maintains the visual representation of the orginial document. The text layer contains the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) version so you can search for any word on any page. That is hot!
The OCR process required to create PDF Searchable Image typically provides text accuracy of 97 to 99 percent. That means that Searchable PDF technology enables you to find a single word instantly that may be hidden inside a 100-page PDF document. Very hot!
