How to Convert a Scanned Document to a Word Document

Converting scanned documents to Word is not an easy task. In fact, the process is so difficult that many people don’t realize that this is something they can do with their own scanner and computer – until they already have a bunch of paper in front of them that they need to digitize.

Editing documents as any other administrative task ought to be fast and simple. Otherwise, you just struggle to keep a competitive pace. Obtaining rid of red tape is definitely an almost impossible task, nonetheless, you can optimize it using a correct solution. Converts Paper Document to Word: Have you ever considered how many paper documents get converted into digital data and document format every year? In your own home office, you might have letters and mail that date back to the early 90s. Nowadays the preferred method of obtaining information is through electronic methods like email, web pages, databases and spreadsheets.

Converts Paper Document to Word: Have you ever considered how many paper documents get converted into digital data and document format every year? In your own home office, you might have letters and mail that date back to the early 90s. Nowadays the preferred method of obtaining information is through electronic methods like email, web pages, databases and spreadsheets.

This article contains tips on how to change scan to word document. You will find out about the potential of an average scanner and what kind of output quality we may expect from it under different conditions. The latter is just interesting, because some people think that you should not expect anything from a scanner, so have a bunch of papers to be converted into a document, you can easily do it yourself.

How to Convert Scanned DOCX:

01 Create an account. Enter your credentials manually or using Facebook or Google. 02 Click Add New to add files from a desktop, the cloud, or via URL. 03 Click Start Editing to proceed with advanced tools. 04 Explore different features like Convert Scanned DOCX. 05 When finished, click Done and save the edits. 06 Find your form in the Documents tab and click on it. 07 Choose on what you would like to accomplish with it. You are able to print it out, download, transform or send by the use of a hyperlink, email, or fax.

This all-in-one editor is a sensible option in terms of document management. There’s no have to switch in between a dozen single-tasking apps when you have the remedy that will cope with any document-related problem. Get even more benefits proper now.

Soda PDF Desktop

Soda PDF comes equipped with OCR technology. This allows a user to edit the visible text found in images. This means that in order to work with a scanned document, it will be necessary for a user to have the OCR Module. Click here for general instructions on working with OCR.

You can apply the OCR engine while you are converting a PDF to a Microsoft Word file. Open the Convert Module and click on Export.

Chose PDF to Word.

In the window which opens you can choose your page range. To learn more about conversion, click here. In the conversion window, you can check the box next to Use OCR. Click on Export to start converting the file. When it is completed you will be able to edit the resulting Microsoft Word file.

Soda PDF Online

Soda PDF Online is accessed through a web browser. Since it does not install onto your system directly, certain functionality is unavailable in our Web App.

You are currently unable to use the OCR when converting a file to DOC. You can still accomplish the goal. Use the OCR engine to scan your document before you convert the file, click here for more information.

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.

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.
Open Microsoft Word.
Select File > Open, then navigate to the location of your saved PDF.
Select the PDF file, and choose Open. Word will open the PDF and convert recognized text into a document you may edit.
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.

Tap to open Office Lens.
Along the bottom of the app, switch the slider to Document. (The choices displayed may include Whiteboard, Document, Business Card, and Photo.)
Position your camera to capture the text you want to scan to Word within view. Tap the button to capture the image.
After a page image is captured, you can either rotate it or crop the edges, if needed.
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.
Tap Done. The system will display your Save To options.
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.
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.
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.

Follow the instructions in How to Scan Documents to Your Phone or Tablet to capture your pages into a PDF.
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.
Once converted, open the .doc or .docx file in Microsoft Word to review the file for accuracy.

How to convert to Microsoft Word?

Upload your image or scan. It can be a PNG, JPG or other image file or a PDF document.
Choose your Microsoft Word format version (DOC or DOCX) from the dropdown menu.
Choose the language of your file to improve the OCR.
Click on “Start”.

What’s OCR? Optical character recognition is used to identify letters, numbers or special characters in a scanned document or image. Using an OCR converter, you can extract the text from such files in order to change, alter, print or save it.

This Microsoft Word converter converts images or scans in one of the formats used by the word processing software Microsoft Word. This includes converting to DOC and converting to DOCX.

Converting Scanned Documents Into Editable Text

You can scan a document and convert the text into data that you can edit with a word processing program. This process is called OCR (Optical Character Recognition). To scan and use OCR, you need to use an OCR program, such as the ABBYY FineReader program that came with your scanner.

OCR software cannot recognize handwritten characters, and certain types of documents or text are difficult for OCR software to recognize, such as:

Items that have been copied from other copies
Faxes
Text with tightly spaced characters or line pitch
Text that is in tables or underlined
Cursive or italic fonts, and font sizes less than 8 points

Follow these steps to scan and convert text using ABBYY FineReader.

In Full Auto Mode, Epson Scan prescans, scans, and processes the text into editable format, then displays it in the FineReader window. In Home Mode, select Magazine, Newspaper, or Text/Line Art as the Document Type. Then select Black&White or Color as the Image Type, and choose Printer or Other as your Destination setting. Preview and select your scan area as described in Previewing and Adjusting the Scan Area. Then click Scan. Your document is scanned, processed into editable text, and opened in the FineReader window. In Professional Mode, select Reflective as the Document Type, Document Table as the Document Source, and Document as the Auto Exposure Type. Then select Black&White, 24-bit Color, or 48-bit Color as the Image Type, and 300 dpi as the Resolution. Preview and select your scan area as described in Previewing and Adjusting the Scan Area. Then click Scan. Your document is scanned, processed into editable text, and opened in the FineReader window.

In Home or Professional Mode, if the characters in your text are not recognized very well, you can improve recognition by adjusting the Threshold setting. See Adjusting the Color and Other Image Settings for instructions.

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

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

Scan your document according to the instructions for your scanner, and save it to your computer as a .pdf file.
In Word, click File > Open.
Browse to the location of the PDF file on your computer and click Open.
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.

Edit and Convert Scanned PDF to Word on Mac Using PDFelement Pro

With the help of PDFelement Pro, you are able to directly edit scanned PDF document by adding, deleting texts, images, links, watermark, or easily annotate and mark up the file. Besides, you can convert the scanned PDF to any editable formats for further use.

2 Simple Steps to Convert Scanned PDF to Word on Mac(Including macOS 10.15 Catalina)

Now follow the guide below to learn how to convert scanned PDF file to Word document for further editing. The screenshots are taken from Mac version (10.15 Catalina compatible).

Step 1. Load your PDF to the Editor

First, you need to launch the program and then import the scanned PDF. To do this, you can either click the “Open File” button, or click the blank area on the interface and then drag and drop the file.

Step 2. Convert Scanned PDF to Word with OCR

Then you can OCR the PDF file by clicking the “Edit” > “OCR” button. In the pop-up window, choose Word as the output format and turn on the “OCR” feature. Finally click “Convert” to start the scanned PDF to Word conversion.

PDFelement Pro for Mac – The Best Tool to Convert Scanned PDFs

PDFelement Pro comes with advanced OCR feature which enables you to edit and convert scanned PDF files with ease. You can also use this PDF tool to annotate PDF files, to secure PDF files with passwords, to fill out and create PDF forms and so on. This PDF editor will be the best assistant for you to manage your PDF documents, you can download this PDF tool for free and explore more features you needed.

Key Features of PDFelement Pro:

Edit scanned PDF with built-in editing tools.
Convert scanned PDF to Word, Excel, PPT, HTML, etc.
Add password, watermark, or personalized signature to PDF.
Create PDF from existing PDF, images, Webpages, and others.
Annotate or mark up PDF with text box or customized markup tools.
Come with outstanding OCR technology and support multiple languages.

Conclusion

How to Convert a Scanned Document to a Word Document If you have paper documents and want to convert them into a Word document, you simply need to get hold of any scanner. You can purchase one if you don’t have it yet, or check in stores for a used one. However, with the help of a quality scanner, it is possible to remove the do-it-yourself task from the ordeal.