PDF Document Management Software, Services & Support

Why I Love Adobe's New ClearScan

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Back in 1996 when I started Document Solutions, Inc., most of our services revolved around scanning to PDF. This background may help explain why I'm so fascinated with Adobe's new ClearScan technology introduced with Acrobat 9.

The ClearScan concept is disarmingly simple. Starting from a scanned page, the software analyzes the image to determine which areas contain text, background or foreground images, and combinations thereof. Each type of area gets specific treatment.

The text areas are OCRed to generate searchable text. As the software proceeds through the pages it develops a library of similar characters. After the OCR is complete, this library is consolidated and converted to real, scalable fonts that are based on the characters actually found in the document.

ClearScan, in my opinion, is one of the best new features in Acrobat 9. This technology finally renders our long-standing MultiResolution service obsolete, because it delivers simply the highest-quality image-to-document conversion available today, with the best-looking output from a scan that you've ever seen, and the file-size is incredibly small.

Did I mention that ClearScan output is BEAUTIFUL? Would you like to see ClearScan PDF for yourself? Take a look at this example, an article originally published in 1975 by Scientific American, and processed into ClearScan PDF by DSI earlier this year.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Document Solutions, Inc. worked extensively with Adobe Engineering, assisting (ok, kibitzing) in the development of ClearScan. I'll post details of the exciting conversion project we performed after that project is announced to the public.

Originally posted on Duff Johnson's PDF Perspective blog for acrobatusers.com.