Answered By: Paula Badgett
Last Updated: Sep 09, 2019     Views: 53

Our older flatbed scanners can process a scanned document using OCR (optical character recognition) to turn it into a file that you can edit in a word processor rather than an image. OCR is not perfect and can misinterpret individual characters or formatting. The more heavily formatted a document is (tabs, underlining, italics, fancy fonts, etc) the more likely there are to be errors in the converted document so it is critical to look it over carefully for misspelled words or strange formatting.

Sometimes it is still more useful to scan with OCR and fix a few errors, but sometimes there is so much to fix that it is almost easier to retype the document, if feasible. Some documents that may not scan well are résumés and forms depending on how complex they are, but you can try it out and see what you get and then decide from there.  Please see a library staff member for assistance if you don't know how to scan or how to scan with OCR enabled.