Hi there, I am new to these fora.
I am newly back to the academic milieu, in a doctoral program in education. I have some old papers of mine that I would like to use as the basis for some publishable articles. Unfortunately, the digital copies (the drives containing the files) of said papers have been lost, leaving just the paper copies. Hoping to avoid having to retype everything, I have decided to explore whether I can create new digital files from the papers through the use of OCR technology. In this way, I hope to be able to rework the originals, changing grammar and adding additional material.
I have discerned several ways that this may (or may not, of course) be achieved. I think that I can achieve this by either: (1) scanning with an OCR capable scanner and then exporting the resulting text file to MSWord as a .docx, then editing and reworking in Word, (2) scanning with a non-OCR capable scanner and opening the resulting image .pdf in Adobe Acrobat pro, and using the Acrobat OCR capability to render the image .pdf searchable and then editing in Acrobat itself, or (3) scanning with a non-OCR capable scanner and opening the resulting image .pdf in Adobe Acrobat pro, and using the Acrobat OCR capability to render the image .pdf searchable and then exporting the resulting searchable .pdf (which I think is essentially a text document, although I might be wrong about that) to a .docx in MSWord, and doing the editing in Word.
I am wondering which of these three is the better course of action in terms of (A) the accuracy/effectiveness of the respective OCR capabilities, and (B) the ease of editing the documents in both Acrobat and Word, respectively. Is the Acrobat OCR more powerful and accurate than that of the OCR software found in most scanners, producing fewer errors and a truer rendering of the original, or alternately, is the reverse true? Is editing of a searchable/text document more easy and intuitive in Acrobat than in Word, or is the reverse of that true? Though I have used MSWord frequently in the past, I am utterly inexperienced with Acrobat and with Adobe products in general, and with the use of scanners. Any guidance that you all can give me with respect to which of the programs that I am considering that I should try will be much appreciated, especially as I will have to purchase a scanner and the Adobe or any other software that I will use.
Thanks in advance,
Mike