OCR in Google Docs for Mac Users

I have Epson Slylus Sx205 "3 in 1" printer, which includes free Abbyy Fine Reader Express. But since I lost my PC with Windows Vista and turned to use MacBook Pro laptop, I lost this facility to scan my documents into editable and searchable text by OCR (Optical Character Recognition), though I can scan images from Preview.

Now I have to find a free OCR software for Mac, this is not easy.

I knew Google Docs can convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents. So after many failed searching, I gave it a try. The result is quite good actually. Here is how you do it in your Apple Mac machine:

Scan document in Preview and save it into PDF format.
Upload it in Google Doc, and select conversion options, tick "Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents."
Now you can edit and search the scanned document in Google Docs.

Some people say Preview in Mac has OCR functions, as to my experience, it's not the case. Preview can select for copy-paste and search PDF only if the your scanner has done OCR for you or the PDF created from text document such as MS word, Open Office or TeX, etc. Preview doesn't have this capability for pure image.

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