Documents can be simply placed on a scanner and the picture it takes of
them can be inserted into a PDF document. If this is the case we have no
way to read them other than with an OCR program. I haven't seen a lot of
them but I have seen my share. Needless to say, it's very frustrating if
you don't have a program handy that can perform OCR on them.
And if you're dealing with financial documents the quality of the image
will have a much greater effect on the accuracy of what you read. An
incorrect letter here and there can usually be figured out in context.
But this would be next to impossible with financial data and incorrect
numbers.
Then again, you might want to first make sure the PDF files are
unblocked. Go to each file in Windows Explorer, open the context menu,
properties, and Tab down to the Unblock button if you see it. After
pressing that button to unlock it you'll probably either have to Alt-Tab
away and back to regain focus, then Tab to Apply, Enter, Ok, Enter, or,
route the mouse to the window and click Apply followed by Ok.
Good luck,
Tom
On 10/5/2014 8:01 PM, Daniel Sweeney wrote:
Hi,
I am not sure how the documents were downloaded. They are a combination
of narrative and financials and come from a website dealing with
statistics on non-profit organizations.
I need to examine all of the information contained in them, but am not
sure what exactly you mean by running it through a OCR program.
Would I save the PDF I downloaded from the site on to my computer and
then open with another program?
I have a very old version of Open Book, but have not used it in quite
some time. I thought it was just for scanning documents and reading, not
for reading PDF’s that I download from another website.
If there is a program I can download that will help me read these, is
there possibly a free one somewhere?
I have never had any issues with reading a PDF before, but will try
something if it is not going to mean I have to purchase yet another
program that I will use only occasionally. Not to mention I would rather
spend the time on getting the information I need from the PDF rather
than spending the time learning how to use a program to read the
information I need that may or may not work. If that makes any sense.
Thanks for your help.
Daniel
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:*Steve Sweeney [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Saturday, October 04, 2014 12:03 PM
*To:* 'Daniel Sweeney'
*Subject:* RE: reading pdf's with "empty document"
Hi,
Is there any way you can find out how these documents were generated? A
lot of people like to scan in documents and save them as .pdf files. If
that is the case you are going to have to run OCR on them to convert
them to readable text. This isn’t a dawting task just not 100% accurate.
Let me know, if I can help you I will.
Take care –Steve Sweeney
*From:*Daniel Sweeney [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Saturday, October 04, 2014 11:17 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* reading pdf's with "empty document"
*Hi,*
**
*I know this topic has been brought up before, but I did not realize how
soon I might need to pay attention to it.*
**
*I need to research a few pdf documents, but when I download them,
trying to read them with Adobe Reader, they appear as “a scanned image
requiring OCR or a malformed document”.*
*At any rate, I cannot read them with WE, and need some help on what I
need to do to be able to access these documents. They do appear on the
screen, but I cannot even get WE to read when I roll the mouse over the
page either.*
*Any suggestions?*
*Daniel*
**
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