How do I edit my scanned documents?

frenchconnection200

I scanned some documents in the office and emailed them to myself at home with a view to changing various things on them, however I've now discovered the only way to change anything is to use paint which isn't ideal. Can anyone give me an idea how to do this, I basically want to change text, please be kind as I'm not a computer expert.

Thanks FC200

BillScarab

What format are the files in?

When you scan a document it usually converts it to an image which is why you can only use paint.

If you want to be able to edit in Word, or similar, you need to used some Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software that 'reads' the document and saves it as a text file.

Linton

frenchconnection200 wrote: »

I scanned some documents in the office and emailed them to myself at home with a view to changing various things on them, however I've now discovered the only way to change anything is to use paint which isn't ideal. Can anyone give me an idea how to do this, I basically want to change text, please be kind as I'm not a computer expert.

Thanks FC200

You could try http://www.free-ocr.com/

datostar

Can you scan to .pdf files? If so, there are various programs around which allow editing. The industry standard is Adobe Acrobat (NOT Acrobat Reader) but that is expensive. Google for pdf writers/editors.

cuppajoe

Another option IF you've scanned to pdf format is to extract text from it using:
http://www.freewarefiles.com/A-PDF-Text-Extractor_program_51015.html


Ever get a PDF file that had a bunch of text in it which you wish you could extract and paste into Word or Notepad? Unfortunately, this situation happens more often than you would think. To extract text from a PDF file, you can use a program called A-PDF Text Extractor, which is free.