One of the most obvious examples of technological evolution is, undoubtedly, our office. The office space has seen a dramatic change in the last two decades.
What was once a paper stacked desk is now a file stacked hard drive, allowing us to neatly manage all of our documents from the same place.
The tech evolution was quick and it happened in just a couple of decades. We suddenly woke up in a super productive world, and we seem dwarfed by technological advancements.
One of the biggest advancement was the invention of a concept that will change the abovementioned office forever, leaving us to thrive in our paperless existence. The PDF.
The Portable Document Format, or PDF, was a true game changer and it now sits on the throne as the most widespread format on the Internet.
It has changed a lot through various updates, but its characteristics have essentially stayed the same. It still is the best and most usable format for storing, viewing and sharing interesting and important documents.
So, where do paperless existence and PDF intersect?
Well, since the PDF is not editable by default, it makes it a perfect file format to store useful scanned documents. But to truly take advantage of all the technology available, you would need to empower yourself with tools that enable you to repurpose and extract information out of those scanned documents.
The alternative to this would be to manually copy information from scanned files, but that option also takes a lot of your precious time.
Thankfully, there are free online tools that can automate that process by converting scanned PDFs to fully editable MS Word documents.
One of those tools is Investintech’s online PDF OCR that can easily be accessed by visiting the online resource page at http://www.investintech.com/pdf-ocr.htm
This tool uses advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert both scanned and native PDF documents into editable .docx files, allowing you to repurpose those old reports that have sat around your desk. The service is completely free to use and you can use it as many times as you’d like.
This, being an intuitive and simple web app, means that you can convert your PDFs in just 3 clicks:
- Upload your PDF by clicking “Select File”.
- Enter the email address to which the converted files will be delivered.
- Click “Start” to send the file for conversion.
All your information is completely secure and all the documents are deleted from servers after 24 hours, as an added safety bonus. There are no limitations to the file size, which means that you can use this service to convert all types of PDFs to Word, on a regular basis.
It must be noted that the conversion accuracy largely depends on the resolution of a scanned document – the documents scanned in higher dpi will have a more accurate conversion output. But being free, Investintech’s PDF OCR tool is definitely a must-have bookmark in 2016.
Do you use any other online free productivity tools? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
