Scanning and Text Recognition (OCR)

Paper documents can be added to M-Files by using a network scanner or a local scanner. For more information on network scanning, refer to Scanner Sources. When using local scanning, the scanner must be directly connected to the computer that is used to add the scanned file to M-Files. The scanning functions can be accessed by pressing the Alt key and then opening the Operations menu.

If the M-Files OCR (optical character recognition) module is enabled, M-Files suggests that the scanned file can be converted to a searchable PDF by character recognition once the scanning is completed. You can activate the character recognition or ignore it. You can also define advanced settings for the character recognition.

You can convert an image file to a searchable PDF as well. The optical character recognition is performed on the image file to enable full-text searching across the file. After the conversion, you can find, for example, a contract document converted from an image by performing a search using the names of the contracting parties or any other text included in the original image file.

M-Files also automatically suggests the character recognition if you drag an image file to M-Files, provided that you have the M-Files OCR module installed. M-Files does not suggest the character recognition for PDF files, because performing the optical character recognition on an already searchable PDF reduces the quality and increases the size of the PDF file. You must convert non-searchable PDF files into searchable PDF files manually via the context menu of the PDF file.