Very good result on OCRing and converting into .xlsx the scan of balance sheets (eased, however, by the very good state of the scanned paper sheets) holding more than one table per page, each with a different number of columns; nearly perfect result with the Excel option "Retain values WITHOUT formatting". On the same input, Smart OCR - which has been offered too by GAOTD and is anyway a keeper - loses the original column alignment and even misses the content of some of them. As for spelling errors, with Aimersoft they are just a few in every thousands of characters. Finally, conversion, included OCR, is fast and does not take significantly PC resources.

When the program is started, I receive
Application Error
Exception ElntfCastEn-or in module PDFConverterPro.exe at 00000000. Interface not supported.

Have uninstalled and reinstalled program but get same error message.

First problem I've had with a Giveaway of the Day installation.

XP Man's excellent comment #22 needs a little review from a US legal standpoint.

XP Man says that "FUBAR" wrote here yesterday that "If GOTD were based in the US, I would use the legal system to stop them from operating until they fixed this issue."

First, "FUBAR" apparently wrote that he would end GOTD. That does NOT sit well with me, and it seems like petty revenge because "FUBAR" believes there's a "vote manipulator" (from "FUBAR" comments during past giveaways.

Second, the only one who could possibly use the US legal system to take down GOTD, is the US Government, or a government agent. Simple citizens can NOT sue GOTD because they have no legal standing to do so. Any attorney practicing law in the US will tell you what "standing" is and that only US government agencies are exempt from "standing" (although other government agencies are being exempted from standing in certain elite cases such as Mass. v. EPA, 549 US 497 (2007)). Ordinary US citizens have no locus standi without injury in-fact.

Third, even if legal standing wasn't a consideration, who in their right mind would even attempt to file an injunction to stop a great company like GOTD? Who in their right mind would spend a hundred thousand dollars in wasted legal expenses, court costs and time - money which cannot be recovered? And this is over a "vote manipulator" who supposedly down votes "FUBAR" comments? Perhaps the low vote result is because of the content of the comment. That can happen without a "vote manipulator."

Of course the government does spend wildly, spy recklessly and has a history of bizarre web site "take downs."

Today, "FUBAR" is back on, advertising for Google and, again, the public "cloud" in this thread. We all are already over-exposed to Google and "cloud" ads. I sincerely hope that whoever moderates this site will stop putting "FUBAR" comments on this thread. The Internet is a vast free place, but there is no rule that a private website like GOTD has to allow threatening comments.

During the past seven years, I have sincerely appreciated GOTD and almost every person commenting here. This site works well, and we've made some great software discoveries thanks to GOTD. I for one want to see that continue.

Many great reviews and alternatives. Thanks to all. I am perplexed though how #2 recommended Calibre and got (earlier) 8 thumbs down. At same time #9 recommended Calibre and got 9 thumbs up! Would be nice to see each reviewer rating similar to download.com. Thanks to Aimersoft for great offering which I will now download.

Setup went fine. Tried to open and keep getting: "Interface not Supported"

So as I'm unable to put the registration number in because it won't open, it's useless.

@Jed #25 Believe it or not, Adobe Reader XI, which is free, has a set of Comment tools that allow you to type anywhere in a PDF, plus annotate and draw. It's a much better program than previous Adobe Readers.

I chose a scanned documetn with formating and boxes. It did it very well.
However, it doesn't seem to recognise that a document is the wrong way up(which a scanned pdf likely could be), and that produces gibberish.

Requiring email registration is bad enough to warrant an unfavorable review. Not accepting "certain characters" on top of that is grounds for a bad review. This offer gets a bad review.

Presently using Calibre which unfortunately is still not doing an exact jog of converting my PDF file into EPUB

Installed this program and then did a conversion from PDF to EPUB.

Beautifully clear pages (5) but it totally ignored paragraph format and ran the whole thing together. Sorry, going to uninstall

Results are usable but both, SOS Aiseesoft PDF Converter Ultimate and Aimersoft PDF Converter Pro, are far away form being good.

The tool needs 2x runs, one with OCR turned on and one with no OCR. At the end, with some manual efforts and combination of both results, the output is nearly perfect.

If I used Atlantis-, Open-, LibreOffice to open the results they looked quite bad. If I however used Microsoft Office they looked quite OK.


To #6 & 34: for me Aimersoft had much better results with my PDF´s.

example comparison

Aiseesoft did totally screw up all my PDF´s, even the layout was totally different. I found no option to disable OCR. I don´t know what PDF´s #6 & 34 used, but my experience was contrary.

Since a previous "giveaway", Aiseesoft PDF Converter Ultimate, has never worked right (it says since the installation it's a "trial" version, and will only do three doc's), I'm willing to try this despite the ridiculous size. I really do wish that GOTD would start weeding out some of these "trials" that are disguised as actual full versions. It would save much grief!

I'm sorry to say that today's offering is not nearly as good as yesterday's (Aiseesoft PDF Converter Ultimate). I've posted a screenshot at http://gyazo.com/487af66f95ecdb505b739ff98f1a9bd8 of a sample page of a PDF document, as converted by both programs to a Word document, shown side-by-side. You can see for yourself how they compare.

I would not expect a lot from any program that claims to convert from PDF to other formats. PDF files are not meant to be converted.

PDF files are normally developed with other tools such as word processors or image editors (Irfanview, Picasa, etc.) The native output of those source programs can then be converted to PDF by any of several small freeware utilities such as Doro PDF Writer.

This process is analogous to writing a computer program and then compiling it. To change the program, you normally wouldn't edit the executable binary. You would go back into your source code, edit that, and then recompile.

But what if you didn't create the source file, and you don't have a copy? There are decompilers and disassemblers and hex editors that may help in some cases, but may not always work.

Similarly, trying to "decompile" a PDF into its component source files is not something that will always give you good results. It may in some cases be better than nothing. But don't expect much.

@Jed #23:

Foxit Reader, my current favorite freeware PDF viewer, will let you type text onto any PDF file. Xchange Viewer which I have used in the past can do the same.

#21 XP-Man
Thanks again.
As a translator, I have to translate lots of pdfs these days and it means a lot of unpaid time for the conversion and formatting, so I'm always looking for some tools that would make my life easier in this respect.
Will give it a try it soon.

Went to down load and it showed it was going to take 15 minutes
my internet speed is 9.68mp why so long on a zip file

Converted perfectly to both Word and Excel for me - if the PDF is scanned, be sure to enable OCR. Well worth having this program - saves me hours of frustrating retyping. Kudos!

'19 added:


Now I know, why the OCR engine is so good. Aimersoft uses the Abby FineReader OCR machine, not the latest, but the System from 2011.

Recommeded!

If people report very different results, they probably tested different PDFs, that is PDFs created from different sources. If you have a PDF that was made from a Word file, then the result will be excellent when you convert it back to a Word-file, but not if it was created from scan. So, it all depends on what you need the program for ...

I tried their PDF-to-Word converter, and the results are just as lackluster as most everyone else. This program has an especially hard time with graphics. Extremely few programs on the market do a decent job. I don't understand why there are so many companies selling half-baked converter software at some ridiculous high price.

I needed this about 1.5 months ago for homework. Professors email homework in .pdf. I wanted to be able to type my answers on the form because my handwriting is illegible even to me.

I just converted 3 .pdf's to MS Word 2007 and typed in answers in each.

Seems to me it works as advertised. I am not a bulk user but for my purposes, I would recommend it. It might be good for them to have student pricing.

Quick tip, if you follow the link up top for the Home page to this GOTD you'll get the registration form -- added name & email & got their email immediately. That email included a link to the software that was MUCH faster downloading...

I started the GOTD download, went to the Aimersoft site, filled out the form, got the email, downloaded the app, wrote this out, & I've still got 10 minutes on the GOTD download left.

I expected a lot more! 80$ for this? It hardly converts pdf into some 6 other formats. And the size is dreadful at 273mb! Guess how much space it needs when I extract it? Some 700 odd megabytes! WTH!! But then I see what is extracted, its the same 273mb. It did work without much of a fuss. But 80$? I suggest you guys visit http://www.zamzar.com/. Does the same for free on various file formats. Wasted my bandwidth.

#5 F.U.B.A.R.

I do read yesterday's comments and I read the last one posted which was yours it stated the following

If GOTD were based in the US, I would use the legal system to stop them from operating until they fixed this issue.

In essence you would be willing to destroy this site for the rest of us because of your childish peevish stupidity which, by the way, is why you are marked down so regularly,

#16 Petr.
In my previous post the document I used had 13 pages; the tools program automatically converted them to 13 JPG images at 300 DPI once having setup the requirements.
All of them were loaded into the OCR program which converted them to a single word document.
The only real disadvantage in this method as far as I'm concerned is that links are not retained, other than that it is far superior to any PDF converter I have used.
Hope that helps.:-)

Excellent tool today for PDF junkies like me: can putting all the data in tables and/or preserving hyperlinks and the original PDF formatting with ease.

Just wondering why Softpedia still didn't list it in its huge library!

The only cons is of course its ridiculous huge size (it takes me ages to download it).

As BEST FREE ALTERNATIVE, if what you need is just to convert a PDF into a Word document (DOC, RTF), then I definitely recommend "Nemo PDF to Word", which can convert PDF documents to Word retaining 100% of original images, tables, charts, graphics, font, size, color, underline, boldness etc...

Supports multiple PDFs batch conversion and password-protected PDF files as well, giving users even the ability to convert partial pages from large PDF files.

http://www.nemopdf.com/pdf-to-word.html

To convert your PDFs in other formats (Text/EPUB/image/HTML/SWF), try also these FREE (or Ad Supported) GEMS:

http://unipdf.com
http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_free_pdf_converter
http://www.ultimatepdfconverter.com

Enjoy!!!

^_^

Installed and registered without problems on a Win 8.1 Pro 64 bit system.

On their homepage a big "TRUST AIMERSOFT" and "7 years of experience". I would like to read, who is the CEO, where is the company located, and so on...

A company without a company profile, no name and no address.

Upon start, an easy to understand interface, not resizable, few and usefully options - that's it. I tested the PDF conversion to .html, to .ePub and the OCR function.

The good things first. I am not easily impressed, but the OCR function is very good, near excellent, few errors and a good retaining of the formatting. If you don't have an OCR program ->> this is today a good choice.

The PDF to .hmtl conversion is one of the best I have seen up to now. I tested it with an True PDF Book, complex layout with footnotes and hyperlinks. With some few correction you get a very good result.

Of course, where light, there is shadow.

The ePub converter is not as bad as most of the other ePub converters, excluded the better free converter of Calibre. If you want to produce a good ePub code, you still have to do it manually with Sigil.

Converting ePub from a PDF file is a more tricky thing, than most of the programmers can handle. So, this is not only a dark side of this today's program.

But! An excellent converter from PDF to .html and .text. A good and modern OCR engine and an easy to use interface. And the ePub files you produce better from the converted text by yourself with Sigil. If you are willing to learn CSS and...

Doesnt work, keeps saying errors no matter what file I try to add.
Not working as advertised, so this is rendered as
"Absolutely useless"
.

I wont slay off a programme I have not tried, the reason I have not tried it is because it is much too large a drain on HD space for what it does. I feel sure that the developers will work on this aspect.

Hello XP-Man, thanks for sharing.
I see one problem with your method.
For a multipage document, you will have to work either with tif files, which I don't whether they are supported by OCR converters, or convert each page separately, which would multiply the amount of time spent on the conversion.
Do you have any advice?

Heads-Up on Registration – If you are having a problem when you enter your email and ‘it argues with you’ by telling you again to enter your email, you may have an ‘unacceptable’ symbol in your email address.
Mine has a hyphen-, although it’s an authentic address, the system doesn’t seem to recognize it. I finally tried another address [although the second address has a period between two words] it accepted it and I got the code.
I hope this saves you some frustration; I was about ready to uninstall it.

I downloaded this program and then downloaded some PowerPoint presentations that had been saved as pdf files.
The program unscrambled them back to accurate PowerPoint files much better than other pdf convert software I have tried.
I need to convert pdf files to other formats more than convert files to pdf so this will be a useful addition to my software.
I think some of the earlier negative comments are more related to the needs of the person making the comment rather than the value of the software.

Tried this and UniPDF (a first rates free converter) on a PDF file that consisted of a lot of graphics with text under them, they both made a total hash of it.
The PDF file structure is complex and very variable, this means that converters have an extremely difficult time converting them particularly in regard to the formatting.
On the other hand PDF viewers seemed to have no difficulty in presenting them correctly, also converting PDF files to images is also very simple.
When I'm converting I take advantage of the latter in the above; I convert them to images and then use an OCR program to convert them to documents using free programs.
To convert to images I use PDFill PDF Tools (Free) available at the following link:-
http://www.pdfill.com/

To convert the images into documents I use Abbyy 5 Pro, in my opinion the best OCR program available, for some reason this is available for free download.
A bit of a surprise as it is generally quite an expensive program, don't be put off by the age of program they seem to use the same converter engine today. The newer version, version 11, can convert to more modern types of files.
This is available at the following link, you need to download both the upper and the lower links on the page, one (Link) is the serial number the second is program itself, a program that supports and many, many languages.
http://forum.raymond.cc/threads/abbyy-finereader-5-0-pro-for-free.35458/

To finish off, my conversion using this method produced an almost perfect document file, the same file that the converters made such a hash of, worth giving my method a try 

Tried with a password protected pdf. Didn't work, said "incorrect password" - it was the right password!

I've been testing quite a few for the GOTD PDF converters since I need to convert quite a few files from PDF to Excel.
Have tried:
- WinPDFEditor
- PDFMate PDF Converter Professional
- PDF OCR
So far, this is the only one that converts files printed to PDF to pretty decent Excel files. All of the others convert to text only.
As for scanned documents - I get blank Excel files, regardless of the OCR setting.
It also converts to Word very nicely - putting all the data in tables and not pictures, as some of the competitors.
As for the other formats, it depends on the PDF used.
This is also currently, the quickest PDF converter that I have on my machine.

#7- I think he meant that he would like it to also offer the ability to do things in reverse. I.E Make pdf's as well as converting them to word etc.

I actually agree, if this did both, I would purchase it for sure. It's nice to have one program that does it all :-)

If tosay's giveaway isn't good enough you can try Calibre
http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

What languages can the OCR work with?

#1 - I don't get it !
It is a PDF converter, so you already have a PDF file.
Do you want it to convert a PDF file to a PDF file ?

Yesterday's SOS Aiseesoft PDF Converter Ultimate is much better. If you missed that deal, you can enjoy the 66% OFF deal @ http://discbackup.blogspot.com/2014/02/aiseesoft-pdf-converter.html
(Can also enjoy life-time free upgrade service)

Since no one reads the previous day's comments, just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I left a reply to yesterday's comments. Gotta love Google! In the US, they're wiring some cities for 10 Gbps Internet. Even with overhead, that exceeds 1 GBps. Gbps adapters aren't even remotely that fast. My city hasn't been selected yet, and even if it were, that would be years away. Their Internet service includes HDTV, with a cloud-based DVR, if desired. One can always hope!

Aiseesoft PDF Converter Ultimate 3.2.6.0 setup with OCR (yesterday giveaway elsewhere) is 120 MB only and Aimersoft PDF Converter Pro 3.1.1 setup is double (273 MB minus 10 MB Themida wrapper). As we are accustomed to a lot of xyzsoft enterprises from China being inside or even outside nearly the same now my question: what can Aimersoft PDF Converter do what Aiseesoft can't? Having only got a slow connection I can't try myself in time. I just started download.

Normally for true (formatted text) PDF a lot of software is working well (perfect results), therefore you should compare PDF which in reality are pictures of text which need OCR.

Aimersoft pdf converter pro giveaway page is： http://www.aimersoft.com/pdf-software.html ，if you have any problems during giveaway, you can contact aimersoft support center at: http://support.aimersoft.com/
and we will solve all problems easily.
With everybody's nice suggestion , Aimersoft will become better and better.

wow it has 273 MB to convert a PDF to sompething other? epub? or Excel/word?


Calibre does this with 68 MB, doesn't it?

Yes ! their chat support says it can CONVERT many files ,, but it Can NOT !! make a PDF file .

So that makes it useless to me .