Learning how to convert a scan to Word document can help you keep important documents in an electronic format. For example, instead of keeping business receipts in the glove compartment of your car, scan them into your computer and save them to a secure storage area. This way, if there is ever a question about a business expense, you have proof readily available. It may be helpful to take photos of damaged items or of questionable repairs in order to keep track of problematic situations as they occur.
You don’t need a scanner to convert your paper documents into a Word document. Microsoft Word has it all in the box. All you need to do is scan in your image, crop and straighten it up, then read on for how to convert a scan to Word document with ease.
I was working on a project where I had to turn a bunch of legal documents into Word files. The legal firm had emailed me scanned copies of the original documents (which I could barely read, let alone edit). Thankfully, I found a company which provides professional scanning to Word conversion service. All I needed to do was to upload the scans and the converted documents were ready in a few days. If you are looking for similar service, you might be interested in who I used and how I got my scanned documents converted into Word format easily.
Scanned documents are the most important source of information in the business world nowadays. Different kinds of business houses record information and data either using scanner or using various kinds of cameras. Scanned documents are one of the best methods to record any kind of document whether it is handwritten or printed. It plays a crucial role in recording information and data in a much convenient way as compare to manual recording.
Check out how you can convert scanned PDF documents to editable Word files using our OCR.
Converting your file from PDF to Word is easy. The process simply returns the contents of your PDF file to its original format.
However, if you are scanning documents and saving them to PDF, most times, they’re stored as images. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is required to extract the text and save the converted documents into editable Word files.
Our online tool offers both options. And yes, it’s free to use.
Converting an Image to a Word/Excel/PowerPoint File
By using ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap, you can convert a scanned image to an editable file as a Word file, Excel file, or PowerPoint file.
Only images with the document type [Documents] and a PDF file format, which are scanned with the ScanSnap can be converted.
If you take the contents in an image into consideration when selecting a format for the file to which the image is converted, considering the contents in the image, reproducibility of the image after it is converted becomes higher.
For details, refer to OCR Function of ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap.
Windows
HINT
- Even an image of a document scanned with the ScanSnap cannot be converted to a Word/Excel/PowerPoint file if a security setting other than the permissions password such as the document open password is set on the image.
- A file to which an image is converted is saved in the following file formats:
- Scan to Word: DOCX format (.docx)
- Scan to Excel: XLSX format (.xlsx)
- Scan to PowerPoint(R): PPTX format (.pptx)
- To view and check the converted Word/Excel/PowerPoint file, your user registration and license authentication for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint must be complete so that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can be used.For the versions of the applications that are supported by ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap, refer to the ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap User’s Guide.
- Do not use this function while you are using Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. In addition, do not use Word, Excel, or PowerPoint while this function is being executed. Otherwise, a message such as “Call was rejected by callee” may appear and the conversion result may not be displayed.
- The settings for converting an image to a Word/Excel/PowerPoint file can be changed with ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap.To start up ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap, select [Scan to Word], [Scan to Excel], or [Scan to PowerPoint(R)] in the [Application list] under the [Application] tab of the preferences window, and click the [Set] button.For details about the settings, refer to the ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap User’s Guide.
- If you specify [Scan to Word], [Scan to Excel], or [Scan to PowerPoint(R)] for an application that you want to run in the settings for a profile, simply scanning a document can convert an image of the scanned document to a Word/Excel/PowerPoint file.
- Display the Main Window of ScanSnap Home.For details, refer to To Display the Main Window.
- In the Content Data Record List View, select a content data record with an image to be converted to a Word/Excel/PowerPoint file.If you convert multiple images in content data records to Word/Excel/PowerPoint files, select the content data records while holding down the [Ctrl] key or [Shift] key.
- Select a format of the files to which images are converted.From the menu that appears when you right-click the content data record, click [Send to] and select one of the following:
- Scan to Word
- Scan to Excel
- Scan to PowerPoint(R)
When the conversion is complete, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint is started and the conversion results are displayed.
Scan Document to Word via PDF
As Microsoft explains, you can open a scanned PDF in Word easily on versions after Word 2010. First, use your scanner and save the document as a PDF in a location you’ll be able to find easily. Open Word and go to “File” and “Open” before navigating to your PDF file. When you select the file, Word displays a pop-up informing you that it will attempt to import the PDF as an editable Word file. All you have to do is click “OK” to start the process.
This approach tends to work better when the document has a good resolution, so if you have trouble – and it’s possible you will – scan the document in higher quality and try it again. This method doesn’t work with handwritten text.
Alternatively, you can use the Office Lens app, which is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, to scan the document directly into a Word document. This method is a more direct approach and is worth trying if you have trouble with the importation process on Word itself.
Online OCR Service
An alternative to using the features in Word is to use an online optical character recognition (OCR) service to convert the text in your PDF to a Word document, as discussed by Computer Hope. These services basically do the same thing as the native Word option, but they’re a good alternative if you have an older version of Word. Visit a site like OnlineOCR or SodaPDF; upload the PDF file on the main page and follow the instructions on the site to complete the conversion. For example, at OnlineOCR, you choose your file, select the language and output format, and press “Convert” to initiate the process.
Using Google Docs
Google Docs has a built-in OCR system, which you can use to convert your PDFs to text before copying them over to Microsoft Word. First, open Google Docs and click the cog icon to bring up the settings menu. Hover your mouse over “Upload settings” and make sure “Convert text from uploaded PDF and image files” is checked. Once this option is selected, all you have to do is upload a PDF to Google Docs, and it automatically recognizes the text and makes it editable.
To save as a Word document, press “Ctrl” and “A” to highlight all the text and then press “Ctrl” and “C” to copy it. Paste the text into a Word document and save it as you ordinarily would.
Importing the PDF as an Image
If nothing else works, you can still get your scanned document into Word as an image, as described by Microsoft. Scan the document or take a picture of it with your smartphone and save it on your computer in an easy-to-find location. Go to the “Insert” tab on Word and choose “Pictures” from the “Illustrations” group. Navigate to your image in the window that pops up, highlight it and click “Insert.” Then, position and resize the image as needed.
How to Convert Scanned PDF to Word Documents Online
- Go to the Smallpdf PDF to Word online tool.
- Upload your PDF file via drag-and-drop.
- Select the option you need—the OCR conversion is only available as a Pro feature.
- Wait for the conversion to finish.
- Download your editable Word file.
Scanned PDF to Word in a nutshell
The process of converting the scanned PDF file into an editable Word doc may take a few extra seconds, as our OCR needs to recognize the text of the paper documents stored as scans in PDF form. On the bright side, being a fast online PDF to Word converter—loved by over 40 million monthly users, and counting, the whole process to convert the file from scanned PDF to Word shouldn’t take too long.
Is the Scanned Pdf to Word Converter Free?
All of Smallpdf’s tools are free to use with some limitations—our OCR Word converter is a Pro feature. You can scan to pdf online, as well as convert images, spreadsheets, and powerpoints to pdf, even when these documents are scans. To use our optical character recognition (OCR) technology to convert images to editable Word, check out our JPG to Word guide.
Cool, But What Are the Limitations?
Free tasks are limited to two per day and some features are only accessible with a Pro subscription. File size is also limited to a maximum of 5 GB, as high-resolution scans may be quite large.
Getting a Smallpdf Pro account will remove the daily task limit and allow you to use the tools as often as you need to convert images to pdf, or scanned pdf to word, or use our scan to pdf converter.
How to convert a Scanned PDF to Word?
- Open PDF2Go and go to the PDF to Word converter.
- Upload your file. You can do so via drag and drop into the purple box, choosing it from Dropbox or Google Drive, or your hard drive.
- Enable Convert with OCR. Improve the result by selecting the language(s) of your scanned document.
- Optional: Change the Word file format if it suits your needs.
- Start the conversion.
Is this converter free?
All features of PDF2Go are, in their basic usage, free. This also includes the scanned PDF to Word converter. There are only a few limitations, such as a file size limit of 100 MB, and the simultaneous conversion of three files (for free registered users it’s five files).
Are my scans safe?
On PDF2Go we do whatever we can to guarantee the safety of your scans. All servers and connections for the upload and download of your files are encrypted using 256-bit SSL encryption. This makes the transfer of your files between your device and our servers safe and secure.
Conclusion
Have you ever had a scan of a paper document, but you needed it in Word? Are you wondering whether there is a way to convert scan to word document? Or do you want to discover if there is a way to convert documents that you have on your computer first into a Word document.
Mergers and acquisitions often require you to convert a scanned document into native word format so that the document is digitally searchable. You can take a paper document and scan it in as an image file, but it is difficult to carry out search operations on an image file as you can with a word processed file. Usually, this process of converting scanned documents into an editable word format involves complex software applications or expensive services contracted out to a firm specializing in office solutions for paperless documentation. But if your business needs to merge documents from multiple sources and various systems, word conversion software will do the trick.