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Bad moon rising! Well, bad source texts anyway!
Thread poster: Howard Camm
Howard Camm
Howard Camm  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 19:26
Italian to English
+ ...
Jun 1, 2016

Is there any way to increase efficiency when editing a bad source text? I recently had the joy (flag raised here to indicate sarcasm) of attempting to decipher a file which resisted my attempts to work on it. The file was a 'dead pdf' version of a scanned fax, which was itself a scan of a photocopy of the printed version of the original Word document. OCR, TRADOS, WORDFAST and FLUENCY NOW were all defeated by it, but I'm sure there must be some software which could help. Any ideas gratefully rec... See more
Is there any way to increase efficiency when editing a bad source text? I recently had the joy (flag raised here to indicate sarcasm) of attempting to decipher a file which resisted my attempts to work on it. The file was a 'dead pdf' version of a scanned fax, which was itself a scan of a photocopy of the printed version of the original Word document. OCR, TRADOS, WORDFAST and FLUENCY NOW were all defeated by it, but I'm sure there must be some software which could help. Any ideas gratefully received (except those which tell me that I ought not to have accepted the work in the first place!), or am I just howling at the moon?

[Bijgewerkt op 2016-06-01 08:49 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
Frank Zou
Frank Zou  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 01:26
Member (2016)
Chinese to English
+ ...
Improvement can be made Jun 1, 2016

You can use some tools to improve the source text format or get rid of some formats


for example:
1. find ^$^p and replace it with ^&****
2. find ^p**** and replace it with space
3. Replace \n with blank

or use translator tool as they mentioned before in some post.
 
Achmad Fuad Lubis
Achmad Fuad Lubis  Identity Verified
Indonesia
Local time: 00:26
English to Indonesian
+ ...
How to edit a scanned pdf file Jun 1, 2016

I recommend to use Adobe Acrobat XI to edit a scanned pdf file. Further details on this may be found in https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/how-to-edit-a-scanned-pdf-file. I hope this will help.
 
Sara Massons
Sara Massons  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 19:26
Member (2016)
English to French
+ ...
Shorthand typist Jun 1, 2016

Hire a shorthand typist to retype the whole document... or do it yourself, it's not that long ans sometimes shorter than struggling with OCR software.
 
esperantisto
esperantisto  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:26
Member (2006)
English to Russian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Ideas? Good question first! Jun 1, 2016

Ideas (well, helpful ones) can only be produced and presented when a good question is asked. Yours is not good as it just wastes many words to give no clue to the essence of the problem you face.

P. S. A wild guess: the images in the PDF file are of poor contrast. Try converting them to 1-bit (black and white) or enhancing colors/contrast (Shift+U in IrfanViewer, many other image processing programs would... See more
Ideas (well, helpful ones) can only be produced and presented when a good question is asked. Yours is not good as it just wastes many words to give no clue to the essence of the problem you face.

P. S. A wild guess: the images in the PDF file are of poor contrast. Try converting them to 1-bit (black and white) or enhancing colors/contrast (Shift+U in IrfanViewer, many other image processing programs would do it as well, refer to the manual). But no guarantee as of helpfulness of this idea. ▲ Collapse
 
Howard Camm
Howard Camm  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 19:26
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Brief Jun 1, 2016

esperantisto wrote:

Ideas (well, helpful ones) can only be produced and presented when a good question is asked. Yours is not good as it just wastes many words to give no clue to the essence of the problem you face.

P. S. A wild guess: the images in the PDF file are of poor contrast. Try converting them to 1-bit (black and white) or enhancing colors/contrast (Shift+U in IrfanViewer, many other image processing programs would do it as well, refer to the manual). But no guarantee as of helpfulness of this idea.


Thank you.

[Bijgewerkt op 2016-06-01 15:51 GMT]
 


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Bad moon rising! Well, bad source texts anyway!







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