Can a Scanned Document Be Converted to Word

Do you want to scan documents to convert them to Microsoft Word documents? Most users nowadays prefer digital copies of documents over the hard copy, because once the document is in a digital format, they can do more with it than they can with a hard copy. You will find many scanners available which allow you to easily convert paper documents into Microsoft Word documents. You can share these documents on your computer, or whenever you feel like doing so.

Yes, it is possible to convert scanned documents to Microsoft Word files. Because scanned documents are usually not in an editable format and need editing if you wish to make changes, they need to be converted into word format so that they can be edited in MS Word. This can be done by several applications and you can use any application of your choice for being able to convert your scanned files into Word format.

So you just received a printed copy of a Word document, and you would like to edit it. That’s all good, but unfortunately, you don’t have the original hard copy of the document from which the print-out came. How on earth do you edit it? Is there some kind of scan editor you can, perhaps, use to scan the document and then edit it? It all seems like the kind of high-tech stuff that requires you to make some pretty expensive purchases as you put together the machines you need to edit a simple document. Obviously, that won’t make any business sense. If only there were a simpler way to do it… But wait, there is!

You can do this using Word’s built-in settings if you scanned the document as a PDF, but you’ll need to use a free converter if your document scanned as an image file. If you have a Microsoft account and a smartphone, you can also use the free Office Lens app to scan your document and save it as a Word file in your OneDrive cloud storage.

Converting a Scanned PDF

1. 1 Make sure your scanned document saved as a PDF. Microsoft Word can recognize and convert scanned PDF files into Word documents without requiring any additional software.^[1]
   • If your document saved as an image (e.g., a JPG or PNG file), you can use New OCR to convert it instead.
2. 2 Open the PDF in Word. This process will vary depending on your operating system:
   • Windows — Right-click the PDF you want to convert, select Open with, and click Word in the resulting pop-out menu.
   • Mac — Click the PDF you want to convert, click the File menu item, select Open With, and click Word in the pop-out menu.
3. 3 Click OK when prompted. Word will begin converting the scanned PDF into a Word document.
   • This process can take several minutes if your PDF has lots of text or images.
4. 4 Enable editing for the file if needed. If you see a yellow bar with a warning at the top of the Word window, click Enable Editing in the yellow bar in order to unlock the file for editing.
   • This usually only pertains to files you’ve downloaded (e.g., if you downloaded your scanned PDF from a cloud service).
5. 5 Clean up your document. Converting scanned files into Word documents isn’t an exact science; you may have to add missing words, remove excess spaces, and fix typos before your Word document is ready to go.
6. 6 Save the document. Once you’re ready to save the converted document as its own Word file, do the following:
   • Windows — Press Ctrl+S, then enter a file name, select a save location, and click Save.
   • Mac — Press ⌘ Command+S, then enter a file name, select a save location from the “Where” drop-down box, and click Save.
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Method 2 Converting a Scanned Image

1. 1 Open the New OCR site. Go to http://www.newocr.com/ in your computer’s web browser.
2. 2 Click Choose file. It’s a grey button at the top of the page. Doing so prompts a File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window to open.
3. 3 Select the scanned file. In the file browser, navigate to the scanned image file of your document, then click the file.
4. 4 Click Open. It’s in the bottom-right corner of the window. Doing so will prompt the file to upload to the website. https://14453287fa1e8a4c23a3626ccf2b35cc.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
5. 5 Click Upload + OCR. You’ll find this button near the bottom of the visible page. New OCR will begin extracting the readable text from your scanned image.
6. 6 Scroll down and click Download. This link is in the lower-left side of the page, just above the box containing the document’s text. A drop-down menu will appear.
7. 7 Click Microsoft Word (DOC). It’s in the Download drop-down menu. This will prompt a Microsoft Word version of the scanned file to download onto your computer.
8. 8 Open the document. Once the file is done downloading, you can double-click it to open it in Microsoft Word. Your scanned image is now a Microsoft Word document.
   • You may have to click Enable Editing at the top of the page as the document might be locked by default.
9. 9 Clean up your document. Converting scanned files into Word documents isn’t an exact science; you may have to add missing words, remove excess spaces, and fix typos before your Word document is ready to go.

Method 3 Scanning a Document into a Word File

1. 1 Open Office Lens. Tap the Office Lens app icon, which resembles a red and white app with a camera iris and the letter “L” in the center of the icon.
   • If you don’t have Office Lens installed, you can download it from the Google Play Store for Android or from the App Store on iPhone.
2. 2 Allow Office Lens access to your phone. If this is your first time opening Office Lens, tap Allow or OK when prompted to allow Office Lens to access your phone’s files.
3. 3 Tap DOCUMENT. It’s a tab at the bottom of the screen.
4. 4 Point your phone’s camera at a document. Position the document that you want to scan inside the camera’s view.
   • Make sure you document is well lit so the camera can pick up as much detail as possible.
5. 5 Tap the “Capture” button. It’s a red circle at the bottom of the screen. This will take a photo of the document’s page.
6. 6 Tap . It’s in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
   • You can scan more pages by tapping the camera with the plus icon at the bottom of the screen.
7. 7 Tap Word. You’ll find this option in the “SAVE TO” section of the “Export To” page.
   • On Android, tap the box next to Word and then tap SAVE at the bottom of the screen.
8. 8 Sign into your Microsoft account. If you haven’t already, enter your Microsoft account email address and password. Once signed in, your Word document will be uploaded to your OneDrive account.
   • This must be the account that you use to log into Microsoft Word as well.
9. 9 Open Word on your computer. It’s the blue app with a white document and the letter “W” in the icon.
10. 10 Click Open Other Documents. It’s on the left side of the window below the “Recent” section.
    • On Mac, simply click the folder icon that says Open on the left-hand side of the window.
11. 11 Click OneDrive – Personal. It’s at the top of the window. This will open your OneDrive folder.
    • If you don’t see the OneDrive option, click + Add a Place, then click OneDrive and sign in with your Microsoft account.
12. 12 Go to the Office Lens folder. Click on the “Documents” folder, then click the “Office Lens” folder. This is on the right pane of the window.
13. 13 Double-click your Word document. This opens the Word document you scanned using Office Lens in Microsoft Word.

Word Online

Free Online OCR is your go-to free and online software to help you obtain editable Word documents from any scanned PDF. It supports a ton of conversion languages and can extract text data from both scan PDF files and images (JPG, BMP, TIFF, GIF), saving in an editable DOCX file.

You are however limited to a 15MB max file upload size in Guest mode unless you sign up to unlock more perks like converting multi-page scanned PDFs among other features. The best thing is that you can retain the original tables, columns, and graphics, ridding you of the need for post-conversion editing.

Steps to Convert Scanned PDF to Word using Free Online OCR:

Step 1: Open the Free Online OCR website: https://www.onlineocr.net/.

Step 2: Upload a scanned PDF to convert. Click on the “Select file…” button, navigate to the source directory, highlight the PDF file, and hit the “Open” button.

Step 3: Select language and output to Microsoft Word. Click on the language button to pick the recognition language and then choose “Microsoft Word (docx)” as the target format.

Step 4: Convert and download the editable Word file. To complete the process, click on the “CONVERT” button, wait for the conversion task to end, and finally use the “Download Output File” option to save the converted Word document.

Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat Pro is among the top converter software that is best suited for the scan PDF to Word conversion process. In fact, it rides on the slogan that you need not retype, re-format, or rescan any content from a scanned PDF when the built-in and automated OCR is at your disposal.

This PDF image to Word converter is popular for the instant conversion of any scanned PDF into editable and searchable Word while carrying over text, tables, and custom fonts to retain the original look. Amazingly, you can also OCR specific sections of a PDF when the need arises.

Steps to Convert Scanned PDF to Word using Adobe Acrobat Pro:

Step 1: Open the scanned PDF file. Click on the “File” menu and from the list option, choose “Open…”. Alternatively, you can just use the “Ctrl+O” hotkey. Use the resulting “Open” window to import the PDF file.

Step 2: Export the scanned PDF into editable Word. Again, using the “File” menu, select the “Export To” option, select “Microsoft Word” from the sidekick menu, and then pick either Word Document (DOCX) or Word 97-2003 Document (DOC).

Step 3: Configure output options and convert. In the resulting “Save As PDF” window, choose your output directory of choice, click on the “Settings…” button to adjust various parameters including the  “Text Recognition Settings”, save the changes using the “OK” button, and finally hit the “Save” button.

Word OCR Software

TalkHelper PDF Converter OCR is our pick for the best PDF to Word converter software. It boasts unmatched comprehensiveness when converting to and from the PDF format. The highlight feature here is the advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) that extracts text data including tables from a scan PDF overly fast and has high accuracy levels.

To literate on the OCR, over 46 recognition languages are supported to guarantee that extra accurate PDF to Word OCR process. Even better, for a multi-page scan PDF, you can choose to convert single pages, a page range, or the entire document depending on your needs; not forgetting that batch conversion is available as well.

Steps to Convert Scanned PDF to Editable Word in High Quality:

Step 1: Add the scanned PDF to convert. With the “PDF To Word” mode selected, click on the “Add File(s)” button, go to the source directory, select the image-based PDF file, and click on the “Open” button.

Step 2: Set OCR options. Head over to the “Convert Mode:” section, select the “OCR (Support Scanned PDF)” option, and then choose the “Recognition Language:” matching the scanned document you added.

Step 3: Choose your preferred output folder and convert. At the top part of the interface, use the “Output Folder:” section to set where to save the converted editable Word document, and finally hit the “Convert” button.

Scanned PDF vs Native PDF

PDFs are majorly categorized into either native or scanned forms and here you will learn what sets them apart.

• Native PDF – A native PDF is an original document that is digitally created from a computer using apps like Word, Excel, Illustrator, and more. They contain code that allows for viewing and reading in the original form. Also, native PDFs contain vector-based files that are largely editable, besides the searchable content.
• Scanned PDF – A scanned PDF consists of scanned images of a given document and therefore lacks the necessary electronic code for integrity. A scanned PDF can initially be an electronic document that is later scanned or passed through a scanner, thereby losing digital formatting. The files are more raster-based and pretty cumbersome to edit.

Conclusions

There are plenty of cases when your scanner will not give you a file that you can edit. This fact does not make scanning any less useful – it only indicates the necessity to know how to convert scanned copy to word. Just a couple of help from an additional tool and all problems with poor quality images will be solved once and for all.

For a number of operations, it’s more practical to put a paper document onto the computer. For instance, many offices like to scan their documents before putting them into the network thus making it easier for members of the same group to access and edit them whenever they want. Also, you may want to preserve important documents in the computer either printed or digitalized. These scenarios are common since businesses and individuals still depend on paper documents. So why convert scanned copy to word?