Hello
has anyone come up with a good way to use Dragon to minimize paperwork. I will be dependent upon Dragon to be professionally productive and in my employment search I am having to rule out a lot of potential positions because I think they will require a lot of paper pushing and that sort of thing.

It just occurred to me that in this day and age there has to be some sort of efficient way to use Dragon to combat this issue. I'm thinking that most paperwork must have a digital origin somewhere and I'm also thinking that paperwork and probably always be scanned I'm just not sure how efficient the solutions would actually be in practice.

 Any advice would be appreciated.

Your KnowBrainer command software already includes a number of commands, that you will probably have to tweak, such as Scan In Black in White and Move to <folder name>. We wrote a personal command for our scanner that's called Scan Document and that's exactly what it does. After it finishes the scan, it automatically opens the folder and displays the document which we can, at that point, move anywhere we want. We're not saying that you should use our example but rather trying to give you some ideas. We like to scan our receipts and drag-and-drop them into the Outlook calendar on the expiration date.

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Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

Thanks, I was thinking scanning everything would probably be the best option but I just wanted to see if anyone was able to find anything better. I know there are a lot of people who have a lot more experience than I do, using Dragon NaturallySpeaking professionally.

 

I'm going to generalize here because I think it's appropriate: most jobs that require "paper pushing" don't require the pushing of actual paper anymore. It's all completing, organizing, and pushing electronic documents -- e-mails, Word docs, and especially PDFs. Using Dragon with PDFs is going to pose its own set of challenges, because just like with websites the availability of the information that Dragon needs to fully interact with a PDF is dependent on that PDF's author. Still, you'll learn to adapt. You'll learn to write macros when appropriate. You'll learn techniques and you'll learn which commands work best for you in every situation. Most important, learn to advocate for yourself. If someone gives you a piece of paper, politely ask them if there's any reason you can't be given an electronic copy. 

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Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

I, too, have eliminated anything paper in my daily routine.  All bills, docs, etc that come to me in the [snail] mail get scanned (Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 -- 20/40 pages per minute) which outputs in PDF form.  I then digitize the PDF using Adobe Acrobat X Pro so Windows 7 Search can index it and include the contents in any future search (you need to use an iFilter to help Windows with this - I use the Foxit x64 PDF iFilter ($20)).

Now, from there, DNS can be used to manage the resulting PDF - moving it to a folder, adding notes & comments to it, etc.  However, the downside is that Acrobat is not SAPI compliant so voice dictation only goes so far.  It would be nice is Acrobat Pro were SAPI compliant, but if and when Adobe were to add SAPI compliance is up to them. 

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Bill
DNS Pro v12.5, KB 2012, Mtech Desktop PC (i7 960 3.2 gHz with 12 GB RAM), Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 240 GB SSD, Philips SpeechMike 3500, SpeechWare 3-in-1 TableMike, Philips SpeechMike 5274 Classic, MS Office 2010 Professional

Thanks for the great replies.
Eric, I'm aware of what you mentioned about most paperwork being electronic but, inevitably when you struggle with something, as I do with pen and paper task you will run across that more often than you would like. And unfortunately in my job search I have run across several jobs that I think would require a fair deal of old-fashioned paperwork.

 The bottom line is I know that I will struggle with manual paperwork and I thought that turning it into a PDF would be the best thing to do. Since I know I am going to struggle with it I wanted to get advice the best way to deal with it.

Also, I have tried a couple of online PDF editors that proved to be a little tricky with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I understand that nothing is going to work ideally but can anyone recommend some good PDF editing software besides Adobe,? I have found I'm just not very good with Adobe products

wheels,

Just enter "PDF editors" into Google and you will see many.  Hopefully, you will get explanations on what they can achieve too.  This then may determine you on which one to go for.

Cheers

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Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

I would think that Nuance (the source for DragonNaturallySpeaking) would make their own PDF editor software the champion for seamless cooperation with Dragon.

Does anybody know if this is the case?

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HP Pavillion dv7;

Yes, Nuance produce some software called eCopy PaperWorks, which I have the benefit of at work, and I think it is sensational software.

It is much more than just a pdf editor, but it certainly gets a five star rating from this punter. May be pricey for a single user.....

Ed 

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DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

Is it DNS friendly?

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Jomark

I wouldn't think it's DNS friendly. I'm currently using the Nuance PDF reader (as opposed to Acrobat reader) on my personal computer, and at work I've used all the old ScanSoft stuff (PaperPort, OmniPage and the like). None of them are Dragon friendly, nor do they have any natural language commands. Truly a case of the left hand not caring what the right hand is doing.

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Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

. That's a shame, think how many of us would use these products. They actually have sort of a captive market. All call that would take to make this happen is a little bit of communication and ingenuity.

In our opinion, making any PDF application work with NaturallySpeaking would be a tough egg to crack because they don't have the advantage of Full Text Control which is probably all but impossible to implement in any PDF application.

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Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

Jomark,

I'm not quite sure how to class 'friendliness' in this context. Because I personally am able to mouse and type as well as Dragon, I don't choose to use Dragon with eCopy PaperWorks, rather because of the points that Lunis makes - it's not really the application for it.

But just so I could report something back to you, I did try it out this afternoon, and found it reacted perfectly well to commands, and to mousegrid, and took text additions to a pdf. I'm not very good at thinking what it might NOT do, I'm afraid, but it seemed perfectly helpful to me.

Ed 

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DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

Nuance has PDF Converter Pro 7, which I sometimes use. It has some good features but is not DNS friendly at all as far as I can see.

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Jomark

Nitro Professional is a full feature Adobe "replacement" for about half the price.  Has most of the current functionality of Adobe Pro.  If you are not now using the free Nitro Reader you should as it installs a PDF Printer (Adobe Reader does not have this functionality).

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Bill
DNS Pro v12.5, KB 2012, Mtech Desktop PC (i7 960 3.2 gHz with 12 GB RAM), Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 240 GB SSD, Philips SpeechMike 3500, SpeechWare 3-in-1 TableMike, Philips SpeechMike 5274 Classic, MS Office 2010 Professional

Wheels,

there is another option unless I'm completely missing the point here.

Seeing as you already have Adobe that I assume to be the free version, you could dictate everything you need to in Microsoft Word first.  When you have completed it, you could save it in PDF format instead of docx format. 

When you go to save it in Word and then confirm it "Yes," drop down the list where it says, "Save as type."  Hopefully there will be an option to save as PDF format from the list.

That's fine if your PDF documents have relatively small content in them and you manage to finish in one sitting. 

If you have lots of content to dictate in them and you feel that you will not finish the document in one sitting, then there is this option:

Dictate your document as you would normally into Microsoft Word.  If you do not finish in one sitting, save the Microsoft Word document as normal (as a normal docx).  Then you can open it again at your leisure and add more content as you wish.  When you have finally finished all you need to do in the Word document, then download this ingenious piece of kit:               

Word to PDF converter

http://www.nchsoftware.com/documentconvert/index.html?gclid=CM6Z3fClha8CFcgntAoddFoR4A

This piece of kit will convert your Word document to a PDF file and the good thing is, it is totally free and safe.  I use it all the time.  It is very straightforward and easy to use.  No need to worry that Dragon will not work in a PDF, you can make your draft in Microsoft Word first and when finished, you can then convert it to PDF.

Cheers

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Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

In Word 2010 use Save As and select PDF from the dropdown list as you recommended for the intial save.

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Jomark

John,

PDF Converter Professional 7 does the best job of any conversion utility for converting Word documents to PDF format because it preserves all formatting 100%, but it's not inexpensive even though it's cheaper than Adobe Acrobat Pro or Pro Suite X. Unfortunately, while saving a word document as PDF is a viable option in Microsoft Word, it doesn't always preserve all formatting. One problem it has is with headers and styles. These get lost in the conversion process. PDF Converter Professional 7 handles these types of formatting issues superbly. Regardless, Microsoft Word's Save As (PDF) does a credible job and handles most cases.

On the other hand, although I'm not sure how reliable it is terms of preserving all formatting when converting from Word to PDF, Tiger makes a good point for that utility, primarily being that it's free.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends." Herbert Hoover

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I think the problem that Wheels faces is editing PDFs rather than saving documents as PDFs. There are good copyediting and proofreading jobs in fields such as publishing and medical advertising, but they require the ability to mark changes on PDFs and not just on Word documents, and that is very difficult to do with voice-recognition software. The Adobe suite of products is miserable in this regard. If it is true that eCopy PaperWorks does allow full editing by voice, that is tremendous news. However, there may still be the problem of employers who insist on the use of the Adobe platform. With the addition of Web-based features, such as the ability for several people to edit a document simultaneously, Adobe is encouraging brand loyalty and making it harder for an individual employee to use a different PDF-editing solution.

Unfortunately, job searching is far more complicated when the need for voice-recognition software is part of the picture, as accessibility is poor in so many commonly used software programs.

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Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

If that's the case, then you can do it the other way round by converting the PDF to Microsoft Word.  I do it all the time.  Then you can work, edit or do what you wish in Microsoft Word and when finished, convert it back.

I use "Very" PDF to Word converter although I had to pay for this one but it was worth it.  At the moment, a single licence costs $39.95 that is equivalent to £ 25.00.

http://www.verypdf.com/app/pdf-to-word/index.html

I agree with Chuck though regarding the formatting problem when converting from Word to PDF.  I only convert essays and this works fine for me but you would probably need decent software as he points out to combat the formatting problem with more intricate work.

It was just an idea to make wheels' workload easier and being able to use Dragon with ease.

Cheers

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Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

Wheels, is any of us anywhere near pinpointing the ACTUAL things that you want to do to 'your' PDF?

Seems to me we are all trying our best but are not terribly certain precisely what your requirements are, and if we were more certain, we might be able to help more.

Ed 

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DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

Tiger Feet, that's a good idea to convert the PDF back into a Word document. I was actually thinking of situations in which someone has to edit a InDesign document that has already been through the graphic-design process and may not be converted further because it is about to be sent to press. For instance, in proofreading a medication label or a print ad, I presume one might need to circle a misspelled word or add an arrow and a note to indicate that a certain graphic is placed too far to the right or left.

 As Ed says, we don't know exactly what Wheels needs to do.

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Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

Scribe,

There is also software to do that sort of thing such as Snag-it.  Lunis and Chuck use it all the time in here to demonstrate certain points on diagrams with arrows and circles etc.

http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-customer-stories.html

Whether it could be used in conjunction with the converting procedure, I wouldn't be too sure.

You are quite right though, it depends exactly what wheels wants to do.  We will have to wait for his answer when he comes back.  He's probably out on the town tonight drowning his sorrows with all this work he has in front of him :-)

Cheers

-------------------------

Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

Tiger Feet: very helpful link. I am glad to learn about Snag It. I've used the free feature in Vista where you can take a "snapshot" of a screen, but I don't think you can annotate that. Being able to add arrows and text, etc., by voice in Snag It is a real advance.

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Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

SnagIt is an amazing screen capture program that will allow you to select a small portion of your screen and add all kinds of effects. We recommend checking out the 30 day eval

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Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

Both Acrobat and Nuance PDF 7 have the ability to mark up, highlight etc PDF documents.

The drawback however is that very little can be achieved by voice using DNS. It would be possible to create some custom commands to carry out certain tasks.

As Lunis says, Snagit is an amazing program and has limited voice control. It produces .png files and I haven't tried converting to other formats, which may be a difficulty.

ps. png files can be opened in Acrobat and PDF 7 and converted to PDF there

KnowBrainer does contain commands for Omnipage by the way.

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Jomark

John et al.,

Yes, but nowhere near what SnagIt can do and 10 times harder.

Users of VoicePower don't need to create any commands for SnagIt right up to and including SnagIt 11. Those commands are all built into VoicePower and make SnagIt 99% hands-free. In addition, the edit box is fully Full Text Control (Select and Say) enabled for adding text.

SnagIt uses PNG files because this allows for transparent background when copying and pasting images into applications whose background is not pure white or where you don't want the image overlapping any text but need to keep it in a very narrow area.

With SnagIt you can convert or save PNG files in virtually any format including PDF. The only thing you have to remember is that these are image files that generally contain no searchable text. Nevertheless, SnagIt will open PDF images in which you can add notes and/or make modifications.

Not necessary and a lot of extra effort. There is very little that SnagIt can't do. In fact, I should say there is VERY VERY VERY little that SnagIt can't do.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable." -- Paul Broca

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Chuck

This can be achieved in Acrobat and PDF Converter 7 I believe.

The downside if you are unable to use your hands is that paper documents would need to be scanned in for you before being able to manipulate them in whichever program.

This thread has been quite instructive.

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Jomark

I just gotta say, and I mean this with the utmost respect, that it's good to see people out there eating their own dogfood. I assume that once you discovered how useful a tool SnagIt is, you advocated to put SnagIt commands in VoicePower. If the Dragon folks at Nuance were actual end users of their product, I suspect that we'd see better integration of Dragon and the applications that people want to use it with.

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Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

Eric,

The VoicePower SnagIt commands have been around for the last 10 versions ever since SnagIt was first released. SnagIt support in VoicePower is not by any means new. And, yes, we do eat our own dog food.

In addition, it's not Nuance's responsibility to make every application speech-enabled. Nuance provides the foundation, it's up to the developers of each application to follow the Microsoft Active Accessibility and use the appropriate rich text edit controls to make applications fully Full Text Control (Select-and-Say) enabled. In that sense, SnagIt already is accessible. The text edit box is not Full Text Control (Select-and-Say) enabled because of VoicePower. It's because SnagIt made it so. Almost everything in SnagIt has Active Accessibility hot keys. In VoicePower, we just simply use those.

If Nuance were to do what you're suggesting, Dragon would become just another case of bloatware and only make it more expensive than it already is. If you have the Professional versions, you could do the same things that we did with VoicePower using Advanced Scripting. Dragon has already laid the groundwork along with Microsoft. Doing any more would be excessive. It's application developers that have the responsibility for making their applications speech enabled and accessible. It's a two-way street and Nuance has already done their part, it's up to application developers to follow suit and do their part.

Unfortunately, PDF applications are, for the most part, based on Java and JavaScript, which, unfortunately, Dragon doesn't support. However, Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) doesn't support PDF applications either any more than Dragon does. Somebody made the comment the other day about PDF Converter Professional 7. That's one of a couple of applications in which Nuance is dragging its feet (i.e., left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, or, at best, ignoring making their own applications fully Active Accessibility and Full Text Control (Select-and-Say) enabled. In PDF Converter Professional 7, you still have to say "press alt f" or use the hotkeys to access any of the menus. At least Adobe Systems makes their applications as accessible as possible via speech. You can dictate into any field or any text box in Adobe Acrobat, the only thing you don't have is Full Text Control (Select-and-Say) except for the last one or two utterances. Keep in mind also that a PDF file has to be text searchable in order to be accessible by speech. You can't edit or dictate into PDF image files, but then you can't do that with any image file anyway. I have no problems using either Adobe Acrobat X Pro Suite for Acrobat reader X with Dragon NaturallySpeaking even given the limitations described above, but I know that Adobe Systems is not going to acquiesce to Nuance. Adobe Systems and Nuance have been beating each other up since day one. Adobe Systems acquiesced at Nuance's request to fix the problem with Protected Mode and Acrobat reader X, but that's a very rare circumstance.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable." -- Paul Broca

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I, too, thank everyone for all the useful information. A year or so ago I was looking at proofreading temp jobs, and a substantial number required familiarity with Adobe Professional. Apparently the commenting and reviewing features are widely used in this type of work. After downloading a trial version of the software, I concluded that those features could really not be used efficiently by voice and therefore I didn't pursue those jobs. It sounds as if Snag It + Voice Power could provide similar functionality, but likely the snag could be if several people are expected to comment on a document and be able to edit each other's changes. Especially in a temporary employment situation, there is not much flexibility in job requirements. But for Wheels' purposes, there are certainly good ideas on the thread.

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Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

Scribe
You are on the money. I'm looking for something that will allow me to scan paperwork and turn it into a PDF. From there I need to be able to fill in the information. Fortunately, I only have to use Dragon to input text at a reasonable speed. I am able to manipulate the mouse and control the computer that way relatively well.

Basically I am just looking for a way to digitalize paperwork so I do not have to fill out with a pen and paper. For me that is a very slow arduous process.

Thank you to everyone for your advice I will now have to start combing through the programs you have mentioned and final one that will work best for me.

Another program to look at is Nuance's Omnipage Pro as part of the mix

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Jomark

Just to mention that KnowBrainer contains Omnipage voice commands

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Jomark

Quote:

I'm looking for something that will allow me to scan paperwork and turn it into a PDF. From there I need to be able to fill in the information. Fortunately, I only have to use Dragon to input text at a reasonable speed. I am able to manipulate the mouse and control the computer that way relatively well.

wheels,

Now that we all know exactly what you want to do, that makes it much easier.

Something that will allow you to scan paperwork would be a scanner or all in one printer.  They usually come with a scanner and copier these days. 

Most scanners these days will scan directly into PDF.  You then have all sorts of options for editing and making comments.  Easiest is directly doing this using Adobe Acrobat.

I am assuming you have already got one of these but if you have not, our starting point would be from the scanned file I take it.

Jomark has already pointed out software that will convert scanned paperwork into a PDF.  This type of software is not inexpensive but if it's going to help you cut down your workload, then it may be more productive in the long run to buy such software. 

To be able then to fill in information or in other words edit the PDF, the most effective way of doing this by voice is by converting it to Word as mentioned earlier in this thread.

There is even another way you can do this right from within the free Adobe software.  You can basically convert and combine PDF files online.

Open up Adobe > File > Create Adobe PDF using Acrobat.com

This will then open up a webpage where it shows you three options on what you can do with PDF.

The first option is "Convert or print a PDF."  With this you can upload any file and change it to a PDF document with one click or print to PDF using Adobe's desktop printer and they store the PDF file for you online.

The second option is more up your street and what you require.  You can export PDF to Word or Excel.  Basically, this will convert your PDF files to an editable Word or Excel document.  Scanned text becomes editable with OCR recognition.

The third option combines and merges files.  Basically you can upload two or more files and get a single PDF file with the documents in the order you want to show them.

The only downside to this is that you have to pay a monthly subscription.  It's not expensive but it all depends on how many documents you are going to work on within a month or how many times you're going to use this facility.  You can even pay an annual subscription if you use it all the time but then, you may as well buy the software that Jomark recommends

Now get cracking with your work wheels :-)

Cheers

-------------------------

Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

The only downside to this is that you have to pay a monthly subscription.  It's not expensive but it all depends on how many documents you are going to work on within a month or how many times you're going to use this facility.  You can even pay an annual subscription if you use it all the time but then, you may as well buy the software that Jomark recommends

A couple of points:

1.  Check out the price of Nitro's PDF Suite ($119.99 and sometimes on sale).  This is a full fledged suite similar to Acrobat Pro. This suite like Adobe Acrobat Pro provides functionality for combining, editing, annotating PDFs, and creating PDF forms. It has a typewriter function so you can directly fill in scanned forms without going through the hassle of OCRing to Word first*. This may be cheaper in the long run than managing PDFs online.  It will certainly be faster.

2.  Scanning paper to PDF does work nicely but as everyone know creates a image file.  Some scanners like the Fujitsu S1500 can scan and convert to editable text in one operation.  In doing so, the document can now be indexed and searched with Windows Search (4.0 in XP and the improved Windows 7 Search).  Remember: if you want Windows to index the content of PDF files, be sure to install a PDF iFilter.  I think the best one if Foxit's PDF iFilter.  Otherwise, Windows cannot peek inside any PDF for indexing purposes natively.  

3.  Adobe Acrobat Pro and the Nitro Suite (alo the Foxit Suite) can do simple word editing right in the PDF, but you are limited to making small changes like correcting a typo.  

* 4. The PDF Pro suites all do a decent job of OCRing to Word (or excel).  In Adobe X Pro, this is 'SaveAs' -> with a list of many formats including word.  But beware, this is not flawless especially if there are many font variations and images.  A page of nothing but Arial text works just fine assuming the scanned page is clean to start with. 

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Bill
DNS Pro v12.5, KB 2012, Mtech Desktop PC (i7 960 3.2 gHz with 12 GB RAM), Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 240 GB SSD, Philips SpeechMike 3500, SpeechWare 3-in-1 TableMike, Philips SpeechMike 5274 Classic, MS Office 2010 Professional

Bill et al.,

I don't know about Adobe Acrobat Pro X, but I have the Adobe Acrobat X Pro suite and that has no problem creating text searchable PDF documents using the built-in OCR, which is actually a derivative of Nuance OmniPage Pro licensed from Nuance. I have never had any problems converting a PDF image to a text searchable document no matter how many images or different styles of text. The reason for this is that the only thing that Adobe Acrobat X Pro or Pro suite do is to underlay the PDF image with searchable text and completely ignores images font styles.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, we make it better!

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." - Benjamin Franklin

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Just to add a little more information.

HP all-in-one printers come with Read IRIS OCR software (rival OCR software to  Nuance Omnipage) and they will scan directly to PDF or other formats.

I would imagine that other makes of all-in-one printers  offer similar functionality.

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Jomark

That's fine if your PDF documents have relatively small content in them and you manage to finish in one sitting

 I do not think it matters if you finish the document is one sitting. If not, save the word doc as usual.  Open it later and continue adding to the doc.  Then when you are finished, 'save as' the doc using type PDF.  Works like a charm.  No need to use and third party software.

The aspect of using a PDF printer, like the free Nitro Reader, is that will work on anything on your PC which can be printed. It simply installs as a printer which you can call up when you need to print to PDF. 

 

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Bill
DNS Pro v12.5, KB 2012, Mtech Desktop PC (i7 960 3.2 gHz with 12 GB RAM), Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 240 GB SSD, Philips SpeechMike 3500, SpeechWare 3-in-1 TableMike, Philips SpeechMike 5274 Classic, MS Office 2010 Professional