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Sincostan's avatar
Sincostan
Explorer | Level 4
4 years ago
Solved

OCR without mobile app

I have a family account and want to use OCR to create searchable PDF files. I want to use the following workflow:   1. Use Brother ADS 2800w to scan paper (German language) and send PDF file to a...
Mobile
Organize
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    4 years ago

    Thanks for the nudge on this kls144 

     

    I got an update from the team and indeed what I previously mentioned seems to be expected behavior. Only docs scanned by Dropbox have OCR, not all documents uploaded to Dropbox. 

     

    I hope this clears things up!

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
4 years ago

Hey kls144 - thanks for joining the discussion here.

 

Could you clarify what exactly you'd like to accomplish?

 

Optical character recognition should work instantly on files you've scanned to Dropbox, both on the mobile app and the website. 

 

Also, may I ask if you're still having issues with this Sincostan? 

kls144's avatar
kls144
Explorer | Level 3
4 years ago

Hi Walter - thanks for your response. I would like to search over a large set of pre-existing handwritten/printed then scanned PDFs that were not scanned in via Dropbox's mobile document scanner. Is there a subscription plan that includes the functionality to search over PDFs generated outside of the Dropbox mobile app? 

 

I'm left unclear on what full text search encompasses as it relates to PDFs based on this list: https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/sort-preview/search-content

 

The tech team did a great job of laying out the various PDF formats and how they can differ for searchability:  https://dropbox.tech/machine-learning/using-machine-learning-to-index-text-from-billions-of-images I'm left with the impression they addressed this in 2018. My use case is focused on what they call "Page has text, but only in the form of an image"

 

I'm currently a Plus prescriber. Thank you

  • kls144's avatar
    kls144
    Explorer | Level 3
    4 years ago

    Bumping for Walter - thank you for the help!

    • Walter's avatar
      Walter
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      4 years ago

      Hi kls144, thanks for the nudge on this!

       

      I believe only scans generated by the built-in scanner can be searched using OCR at the moment while handwritten documents are also not detected at this time.

       

      I'm double-checking this with the team as well and I'll let you know more when I hear back from them.

       

       

       

      • kls144's avatar
        kls144
        Explorer | Level 3
        4 years ago

        HI Walter - did the engineering team ever confirm one way or another? Thank you

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