The emergence and rising popularity of smartphones, social media, emails and other technology show that the world is going digital and obviously there is no turning back. Although many book lovers still stick to paper books, a massive number of readers have switched to electronic books or eBooks. The quick transition has increased the demand for document scanning and conversion of books and other written documents into digital format. Documents in bulk can be converted from and to various formats such as PDF, HTML, DOC, XML and so on with the help of a document scanning company.
PDF is one of the popular formats used for transmitting extensive information from one system to another. This is the age of automation and automated eBook conversion has become popular. Though automation is a huge time saver, the output may have to be reviewed by a human reviewer to identify and correct any errors that may have been made by the AI (artificial intelligence) algorithm. There are some major things to know when converting a PDF document to Word format.
Addressing PDF to Word Doc Conversion Issues
PDF files created from editable document files with few advanced layout features such as wrapped images, callouts, and so on are easier to convert compared to PDF files made from scanned images. When a PDF is created from a scanned book, the images are like photographic images, with the software understanding the page as an image and not text. Only when OCR software is run on the image, it can be interpreted as text. It is seen that even OCR software with 99% accuracy could create issues such as wrongly interpreted words.
Although OCR ensures accuracy it still lacks sufficient Artificial Intelligence. The mistakes it makes can be rectified only with the help of skilled humans. Small text, unconventional fonts, poor quality scans and images are other instances where machines fail. These mistakes can be easily identified by human eyes.
Once the Word Doc created from PDF is ready, you have to read each and every word in the document to ensure accuracy. You must ensure accuracy and clarity in your eBook because readers demand that, and these elements have an important role to play in deciding the popularity of your eBook. You have to implement standard formatting for your document before eBook conversion. Apart from that, here are some other steps to take.
- Check for incorrect words: Sometimes OCR and the standard PDF to Word conversion algorithm misinterpret letters that look the same such as “Li” and “U”. So, look for incorrect or misspelled words.
- Correct incomplete or broken sentences: PDF to Word conversion could result in incomplete or broken lines. The ideal way to detect these lines is by turning on the “show invisibles” option and by changing the font size.
- Correct hyphenated words: PDF to Word Doc converter does not recognize the need for a hyphen. If there is a word that is hyphenated because it has been split on two lines, the PDF to Word conversion software will retain it and the resulting word may be wrong such as “buil-ding” for “building.”
- Correct formatting issues: OCR technology often misses bold and italic formatting and it sometimes mixes up upper and lower cases.
- Correct multiple spaces: Sometimes you find words separated by multiple spaces in your document. This can be fixed by using the “find and replace” option.
If the document is full of errors, the easier alternative is totake the following steps to remove all the formatting.
- Open your Word Doc and choose “Select All” from the Edit menu and copy the content.
- Next, open a plain text file. For this, use Notepad, TextEdit or some other plain text editor.
- Paste the selected content into the text editor.
- If you find many line breaks, do a global search and replace for all line breaks and replace them with a space. The method to do this will vary according to your OS and text editor.
- Next, reconstruct your document using the physical book or PDF scanned source as a visual guide.
Addressing the various issues that come along with PDF to Word conversion is very important to ensure accuracy and readability for your eBook. This involves a great deal of time and effort. If you have large volume conversion to do, partner with a good document scanning company for the best results.
