How to Change Scan to Word Document

Sometimes it is necessary to scan a document and convert it into a Word document for editing and further distribution. Usually, scanner is pre-installed in every laptop or computer system. It is basically designed for scanning files and documents for further use. If you are using windows operating system then you can easily access a window scanner through the icons present in the desktop from the control panel of your computer system. If you want to use scan to word document app then this article will help you in learning more about scan to word document app so that you can easily change scan to word document.

Do you want to learn about convert your paper document to word? Or are you looking for an app to help you with scan to word document into Microsoft Word? You have a lot of choices and options. But first, let’s think about what we’re trying to accomplish. As a business owner, you are inundated with paper documents on a daily basis. Many of those documents wind up sitting in the corner of your office — possibly for years at a time. This is especially prevalent with invoices and receipts that sit in a pile on your desk. Some business owners try to get organized when they encounter this issue, only to abandon it months later when the task becomes overwhelming again. Today, I’m going to share with you an app that can help make this type of organization a habit that sticks around longer than 4 months.

If you are searching for information on how to convert scan to a Word document, you’ve come to the right place. Scanned documents can be printed and converted into Word format. This article explains how to convert a scanned paper into a Word document.

Changing a scan to Word document can be carried out by anyone. Scanning a document is one of the easiest ways to preserve papers, photos and more. Converting a file from PDF format to Word format can be performed on just about any computer with minimal effort involved. If you do not convert the file, it may be difficult for other individuals to view the document, as well as make edits or updates to the original file.

Scan a document as a PDF file and edit it in Word

Tip: The conversion works best with documents that are mostly text.

1. Scan your document according to the instructions for your scanner, and save it to your computer as a .pdf file.
2. In Word, click File > Open.
3. Browse to the location of the PDF file on your computer and click Open.
4. A message appears, stating that Word will convert the PDF file into an editable Word document. Click OK.

The converted document might not have a perfect page-to-page correspondence with the original. For example, lines and pages may break at different locations. For more information, see Opening PDFs in Word.

What to Know

• Use your scanner to scan a document as a PDF, and then open the PDF with Word.
• Use the Office Lens and Word apps on mobile to scan documents and open them with Word.
• Once you have a PDF of your scanned document, you can also use an online conversion tool to convert it into a Word document.

Most installed desktop versions of Microsoft Word can open and convert PDF files into editable Word documents directly. Or, you can scan pages and open recognized text in Word with an Android or iOS smartphone camera or a desktop scanner

Scan Documents and Open with Installed Word

The character recognition capabilities in Microsoft Word work best with documents that are primarily text. For example, Word would be likely to cleanly open and convert a contract comprised of several pages of printed text whereas Word may struggle to cleanly recognize text in a brochure where text is printed within or around images in anything other than a single column.

You’ll need a working scanner connected to a Windows or macOS system, along with a relatively recent version of Word. 

Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Microsoft 365 all support the ability to open and convert PDF files into Word documents. While Microsoft offers some instructions for converting PDF files into word for older versions, such as Office 2010 and Office 2007, the process is more complicated.

1. Follow your scanner manufacturer’s instructions to scan your document to a PDF file. Save this file at a location you will remember on your computer.
2. Open Microsoft Word.
3. Select File > Open, then navigate to the location of your saved PDF.
4. Select the PDF file, and choose Open. Word will open the PDF and convert recognized text into a document you may edit.
5. Read the converted text carefully, as some letters may be incorrect. The system may display items not identified within the document as images.

Use Mobile Apps for Android or iPhone

On an Android or iOS device, you’ll need to install both the Office Lens app (install for Android or iOS) and Microsoft Word (install for Android or iOS). After you install each app, tap to open it, and then sign in with your Microsoft account. Once you’ve installed and signed in to both apps, you’re ready to scan pages.

1. Tap to open Office Lens.
2. Along the bottom of the app, switch the slider to Document. (The choices displayed may include Whiteboard, Document, Business Card, and Photo.)
3. Position your camera to capture the text you want to scan to Word within view. Tap the button to capture the image.
4. After a page image is captured, you can either rotate it or crop the edges, if needed. 
5. If you have additional pages to capture, tap the camera icon (in the lower left) to take another photo. Repeat this process until you have no more pages to scan.
6. Tap Done. The system will display your Save To options.
7. Tap Word. (On Android, you will then need to tap Save.) Wait for the app to recognize the text. The app may indicate “Waiting to transfer” or “Transferring” as it works. It will display the scanned document with a Word icon on the display.
8. Tap the document, which will open your scanned file in a Microsoft Word document. For reference, the Word document includes the image you captured within the document.
9. Review the recognized text to make sure the information is accurate.

Convert a PDF to a Word Document

If you lack access to Microsoft Word or your version of Word doesn’t open PDF files, you can still likely scan files to a PDF with an Android or iOS device, and then convert the documents into Microsoft Word.

2. Follow the instructions in How to Scan Documents to Your Phone or Tablet to capture your pages into a PDF.
3. Then, use a website service, such as CloudConvert.com or FileZigZag.com, to upload your PDF, convert it to a Word document format, then download it and save it to your system.
4. Once converted, open the .doc or .docx file in Microsoft Word to review the file for accuracy.

Optical character recognition, or OCR, is a widespread technology that allows you to scan documents and turn them into editable soft copy documents that you can then easily edit. Plenty of software makers offer OCR, such as Adobe OCR. Microsoft is one of those software makers.

If you have a printed copy of a document and would like to be able to edit it, you can do it using Word. First, scan the copy, and then use Microsoft OneNote to turn it into an editable document and send it to Microsoft Word. Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking and planning software that comes as part of the Microsoft Office suite. It has the ability to perform OCR on a wide range of documents, including PDF OCR.

Provided you scanned the document properly, Microsoft OneNote will capture any images and text in the document and send them to Word, in which you can easily edit them. All this is a simple process that you can do in a few minutes.

1. Launch Microsoft OneNote
2. First, you need to launch Microsoft OneNote on your computer. Microsoft OneNote is fairly easy to find. Start by clicking on the Start menu and navigate your way to the Microsoft Office folder. There you will find Microsoft OneNote in the list of Microsoft Office software. Once you’ve opened OneNote, click on the button labeled “New Page” in the top right-hand corner of the window. A new note will be created.
3. Open “Insert Picture” Window
4. At the top of the window, there is a button labeled “Insert.” Click on this button and select the “Picture” option from the images group that appears at the top. The “Insert Picture” window will pop up.
5. Insert the Image
6. Search for the file with the image of the scanned document and select it; then click on the button labeled “Insert.” The image will be inserted into your note.
7. Extract Text From Image
8. Right-click on the image that you just imported and choose the option labeled “Copy Text from Picture.”
9. Open New Word Document
10. If you don’t already have Microsoft Word up, launch it and create a new document.
11. Import Text to Document
12. Right-click inside the document and, from the drop-down menu, click on the “Keep Source Formatting” icon found under the “Paste” options.
13. Edit New Document
14. The text from the printed document will now appear in your new document. You can edit it as you please.

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.

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.
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.

Tips

• Office Lens will handle physical files (e.g., paper documents) better than on-screen text.

Conclusion

Converting documents from paper to digital format has always been a problem. This is because they contain images and text that cannot be recognized by computers. Hence, there is need to change scan to Word document before you can view them on your PC or use them on the web.

Scanning documents to digital files is a way of making sure you always have a backup in case something like spilled coffee or a robbery happens. So it makes sense to want to learn about the technology behind scan to document software, you need to understand how scanning paper to word works by going over the fundamentals.