How to Edit a Scanned Document (on Windows & Online) with precision?

Your business in today’s times should scan and convert old paper-based documents into electronic files. It helps you store them efficiently and make them more searchable. However, performing this task isn't always easy. This guide to editing a scanned document will show how you can accomplish that.

What is a Scanned Document?

‍

A scanned document is a digital copy of a paper document. When you scan a document, it becomes a digital file that you can easily store, search, and share with others. 

‍

The process of converting paper documents into digital files is called scanning. Scanned documents find wide-ranging use today, especially since the widespread adoption of PDFs and other file formats that allow you to store your documents electronically.

Scanned documents often get used for purposes like digitizing books and newspapers, creating searchable databases, and making copies of important papers that are too fragile to be handled by humans. The term scanned document may also refer to converting an image into digital data, which then gets stored on a computer or other digital device.

‍

How to Scan a Document with Precision?

‍

There are many ways to scan documents depending on your needs. If all you need to do is convert paper documents into digital files, so they're easier to store, share and search, you may want to use an office scanner or multifunction printer.

‍

These devices have an inbuilt optical scanner that lets you take a picture of any document. You can then save it as a PDF or JPEG file on your computer's hard drive or upload it directly onto cloud storage services.

‍

If you want more control over how your scanned documents look — like adjusting brightness and contrast or adding annotations — consider using an image editing program. Such programs have basic editing tools that can be helpful when working with scanned images.

‍

For cases where you have documents with handwritten text, multiple languages, and checkboxes, VisionERA’s IDP solution is an excellent choice. It brings in all the capabilities of an AI-powered advanced OCR platform.

Ways to Edit Scanned Documents

‍

You have two options when it comes to editing scanned documents. You can either do it on a Windows program or opt for an online service.

1. Editing Scanned Documents on Windows

‍

Generally, you can edit a scanned PDF on Windows. However, it depends on the way you scan your document and how much editing you need to do. If you have an OCR-enabled scanner, the scanned document will be in text format, making it easy for you to edit. If this is not the case, you may need some special software.

‍

The best option is to use a scanner with inbuilt OCR functionality or buy a standalone OCR application. An OCR application can help if you need to edit multiple documents or perform complex editing tasks that require special formatting tools and grammar rules.

‍

It is also possible to open a scanned PDF file in an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop. However, this isn't ideal because these programs are primarily for image editing and not document editing, so they do not support all of the features needed to make changes directly in a scanned document.

‍

Steps to edit scanned documents on Windows:

‍

• Import the PDF file into the editing program
• Perform OCR on the document as it will help the program recognize the text and make sense out of it.
• Edit the PDF file once the OCR process is complete.
• Save the edited PDF file on your system.

‍

 Examples of Free OCR softwares for Windows: Microsoft Onenote, SimpleOCR, Photo Scan, Capture2Text.

‍

2. Editing Scanned Documents Online

‍

You can upload files directly from your computer to an online editing tool that has OCR capabilities built in. The tool will be able to read the text in the scanned document. These programs will convert original text into editable text so you can make changes without needing special software.

‍

Steps to edit scanned documents online:

‍

•  Visit the website and open the online OCR tool.
•  Select and upload the scanned document you want to edit.
• Ensure you pick the relevant OCR settings and select the desired language and output format.
• Download the file and save it in your system once you receive the output.

‍

 Example of Online OCR tools: onlineOCR, sodapdf, ocr.space, tools.pdf24.

‍

Best Practices for Editing Scanned Documents

‍

Scanning documents is a great way to save time and space. However, if you don't take the time to clean up and edit your scanned documents, it may not be worth your while. Here are some best practices for editing scanned documents:

‍

• Use a scanner that delivers high-quality images. The quality of the image gets determined by the scanner's resolution and dpi (dots per inch). A good scanner will produce an image that is at least 300 dpi. You can also use software such as Adobe Photoshop to increase the resolution of an image after scanning it.
• Scan in color if possible. Scanning in black and white may be less expensive, but it can lead to poor-quality images that can be difficult to edit later. Scanning in color will give you more editing options when you're working with photos or other images that require complex color adjustments.
• Scan only one side of each page before turning it over so that each side gets equal exposure during the scanning process. It guarantees both sides get scanned at the same quality level.
• Scan multiple pages at once using the multi-page feeder feature built into your scanner. It will cut down on the time required for scanning large batches of documents.

‍

Scan and Edit your Enterprise Documents with Ease and Precision using VisionERA

‍

A large majority of enterprises struggle because of large volumes of unstructured documents. A normal OCR software can extract data from them but can’t perform the function automatically on huge volumes of unstructured documents.

‍

This is where VisionERA comes into picture. VisionERA is an  Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) platform that processes documents of all types with advanced precision. Whether it is a paper or digital document, VisionERA will scan, validate, and convert them into an editable format with the unmatched power of AI.

‍

VisionERA is ideally suited for document-heavy businesses that need to scan a lot of documents at once. It is an affordable solution guaranteed to deliver the best ROI for your business.

‍

Note: Are your current document processing practices cumbersome and don't produce desired results. Worry not as we are currently offering our platform VisionERA at $0 invoicing. Like to know the terms & conditions of the offer? use the link here.

‍

‍Want to test it out yourself? Use our Free trial to upload your enterprise documents.

‍

To set up a demo with our Document Automation consultant to ease your enterprise document processing problems? Fill out our contact us form.