So I was talking with one of our copier reps who had some questions about searchable PDFs.

Basically this is an enhanced scanning function that allows a person to take a paper document, scan it to themselves, and viola, it's searchable and on their desktop. 

Now if you've read any of my other blogs, you probably know that I don't really see how valuable it is to be able to find a word in a PDF in comparison to having a searchable repository. Searchable PDFs are great once you find the document to execute the search on, however if you put the document into a Document management system, you just need to know the word or words and it finds the document and the word location within the document.

Regardless, many manufacturers are adding this scanning feature to their copiers and the reps are selling it as the greatest thing. As I talked to the rep, I started to wonder if we weren't missing the bigger picture. Here's why I ask that.

The majority of documents start out electronically. They are created in a Microsoft application, an accounting package, or as an e-mail. These are then sent out, electronically a lot of the time, and then someone prints and rescans the document into a searchable format.

Seems to me, it would be easier to skip the printing and scanning step. Or if you need to scan, don't tie up a copier to do it. This is a roundabout way to introduce ABBYY's Recognition Server v2. In a nutshell, this is a software program that converts documents from one format to another. So you can create searchable PDF's from regular electronic documents, but you can also convert PDF's into Word, Excel, or Power Points.

You have greater control and more power to process. Servers run faster than a copier's CPU. In environments where the functionality to convert is important, and the volume is high, I would submit that Recognition Server is well worth considering.

If you are thinking about this technology, I would encourage you to look at the attached brochure.

Jason

Link: ABBYY Recognition Server Overview (PDF)