How to Scan a Paper Doc & Convert It with OCR to a Word Processing Format

In an effort to save others with a similar need some time, I am posting a simple method of using he iPhone to scan a document and convert it, using optical character resolution, to an editable word processing format, usable on computers or iPhones and Android smartphones - all with free apps. I found no free one-stop-shopping apps that did the job themselves.

To begin, use the DocScan app to scan the paper document. this results in an Acrobat file (pdf). If the document is already in pdf form, move on to the next step.

Next, upload the pdf file to your Google Drive workspace, which automatically puts it through an OCR conversion, Google Drive automatically recognizes the text within pdf files uploaded from iPhones.

Then open the file within Google Drive, select Open In and choose the Able2Extract app.

Select the pdf file in Able2Extract and convert it to an MS Word (docx) file, which can be opened by Pages, Word or other word processing programs. It can also be converted to a spreadsheet or presentation MS Office format.

Finally, transfer the new docx file to the Documents app, the Dropbox app or another storage app, from which a word processing program can access it for editing.

Many apps, including Able2Extract, convert all types of files into pdf format when going the reverse direction.