Free/Inexpensive PDF creation from scanner

[agh98]

I don't want to spend the money for adobe acrobat (it's ridiculous for just home use) but I want to scan in bills/etc. and archive them. I know OS X has built-in PDF functionality but I don't see how it creates them aside from the new Tiger print to PDF function.

Ideally, I'd love to have an OCR part in the resource fork so Spotlight could search within the PDF but that may be too much to ask. That would be _really_ nice, though!!!!!!

 

[Natobasso]

Scan your docs with OCR and then use the "print" from OS X to make a pdf. If you had Acrobat Pro you could edit text within those pdfs, but you could use any text editor, paste the text you've scanned, print a pdf and keep the txt file too. Maybe .txt files are searchable?

 

[agh98]

I'm not missing a free one in OS X that I don't know about am I?

 

[Natobasso]

Nah, OCR software usually comes bundled with scanner installation software when you buy a scanner.

 

[agh98]

Thanks for that....I'll use Image Capture and print to PDF for now. I'll work on the PDF OCR component later on. I guess I could always add that functionality later with acrobat or the like.

 

[Natobasso]

Whoah. Now I finally understand what you want to do. Before you jump in…

Start here for more info on what you want to do--PDF to OCR text:
http://www.google.com/search?client...icial_s&hl=en&q=ocr+to+pdf&btnG=Google+Search

Looks like OmniPage OCR does what you want, it takes pdf data and converts it to OCR editable text. Do some research before you get started, and test it with a typical document so you don't have any heartaches down the road.