Marek,
>"1. What languages does that OCR recognize, or – if the list is fairly long and tedious to edit – is it capable of recognising texts in Polish? I’ll appreciate your reply."

I'm not sure if will you will get a reply from the developer so I will tell you what I know about the program after installing and testing it.

For the first part (What languages does that OCR recognize), first, let me explain how OCR works in the briefest sense. It is not recognizing languages, but instead, recognizing letterforms of a typeface, including non-English common letters/characters (along with accent marks). So OCR programs can recognize some typefaces better than others. After the program has determined what it has determined is a valid character, then the language comes into play to form the output words. The language "presumed" to be in the source can influence how the OCR decyphers the character shapes, so it is important what language is "presumed" as well.

3StepPDF has a drop-down menu to select one of five languages, and they are the most common languages: deu, eng, fra, ita, spa. Even though Polish is not listed, you might get some characters recognized by using deu.

Your second question:

>2. Is my understanding correct that in a PDF with a text image inserted in it, the OCR will recognize characters in that image and "replace" graphics with genuine, editable text leaving the layout of the page untouched? This is at least what Adobe Acrobat Prof. can do with limited success.."

Your "understanding" is correct as far as "intent" goes, but most programs that have some OCR ability never get quiet there enough to satisfy customers. As you stated, even Adobe does not do a perfect job. 3stepPDF can extra text from PDF files and also graphic files alone. PDF files can have text and images. The text portions are easy since all the extraction program is doing is reading the text. For images it finds in a PDF file, it must resort to using its OCR capabilities.

As an example of 3StepPDF OCR capability from a graphic file, I used an image that is 4376x9904 pixels, an old document of the Centennial Celebration of Washington's birthday, Philadelphia, February 1832. This file is easily found and accessible from Wikicommons as "Centennial_celebration_of_Washington's_birth_day,_Philadelphia,_February_1832.png"

Magnified to screen width, the text is easy to read, however, the background paper is a light tan due to newsprint fading. The top of the page is torn, and I believe it contributed to what was used by 3StepPDf to form letters.

Notice the word birthday is broken into two words on the original document, so don't let that part confuse you. The original document starts with:

WASHINGTON'S BIRTH DAY.
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.

3StepPDF's OCR resulted in:

’ - . I 9 | i It I ~ ‘ .
I M ASH, TNGTWN S it At.
—:_———n --
, CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.i

I am not sure how much of that is due to attempting to interpret the tear as text.

The original document following the heading is in two columns (a vertical line separates the two sides). 3StepPDF sees the document as one line at a time, so whatever is on the right side that is closest to where the left line started is considered a continuation of the text on the left. This means that the basic results will be confusing. In these cases, the user can edit the original graphics file to divide it into different parts, then use each part to see how well 3StepPDF can get to the actual text. Of course, if you are using a PDF file to start with, you would have to save the pages as images, edit/split up as needed, then proceed.

You will need to make your own decisions about whether the OCR is good enough for your needs.

As for the other functions of the program, they all seem to work flawlessly.

One other thing to know is that the version given away here has some nice features, including a lifetime license, but it is limited to personal use (not commercial). The developer's website lists a "Lite" edition, which is free, and an edition (without the Lite nomenclature) that does allow use for commercial purposes or updates. It is not clear if there are other limitations. Currently, the edition that allows commercial use is available for $4.99 on the developer's website. I thought I would make the purchase and see if there are noticeable differences. I received an e-mail with a new activation key to use. When I installed the purchased edition and then clicked on Activate, I get a small dialog stating 3StepPDF is activated. Thank you!

No matter if I install over the one already installed or do a full uninstall and search for all leftovers (using two different uninstaller programs (IObit Uninstaller and Ashampoo Uninstaller)) prior, when I install the purchased edition, it still does not allow me to enter the key I received, so I think I just lost $4.99.

I hope that helps.

Dear Gary, for the time being (my time for the reply is fairly limiter at this moment) ,I only want to say that great, really great thanks go to you from me for your above contribution,which is sure to be beneficial to many other users as your remakrs far exceed what might be needed in the context of this particular giveaway only.

I’ll get back to this thread later to share also my experience with other OCR software. Cheers, Marek

Marcus, probably in your computer. (If you 'installed' it, it would produce a shortcut on the desktop, if you just downloaded it look in the place you've designated to accept your downloads.)

Marcus,
Folder path of installation is: C:\Program Files (x86)\3StepPDF
The program executable is 3StepPDF.exe

I suggest that you reinstall the program over the one you just installed because there is an option to create a desktop shortcut during the install process.

Also suggest that you download a free program called>>> Everything
IMO it's the best and fastest search tool for your hard or ssd drives

Robert Deragon, I checked Program Files yesterday on all 3 machines I ran the install on. It's not there. No new entries. Just checked Program Files again on this machine. 3StepPDF is not there. Like I wrote late yesterday, another GAOTD used emailed me and wrote that the exact same thing happened to him, not only with 3StepPDF yesterday, but with the same company's icon program giveaway the previous day. Troubleshooting practices now strongly point to the installation problem as being a recurring one on 3Step's part.

Marcus,
>"Just checked Program Files again on this machine. 3StepPDF is not there"

Robert responded to you that the program is located in
C:\Program Files (x86)
not
C:\Program Files

If you are using a 64-bit OS, then only 64-bit programs go into C:\Program Files.

32-bit programs go into C:\Program Files (x86).

3StepPDF is a 32-bit program. Try looking in the C:\Program Files (x86) folder, and if you still do not see it, run the install again to see the location displayed as one of the install steps.

It is possible that your antivirus program could wipe the file out but that would depend on your antivirus settings. You can test the downloaded file online at virustotal.com to see that it is safe. After that, as a last resort, turn your anti-virus off because now you know it is safe and no one else is having trouble with the program.

One final thing would be to contact the developer's support area where you can open a trouble ticket, however, you may not get a response due to the terms of this giveaway (no support).

Others have been able to install this successfully and I believe you can too.

Gary, I did check C:\Program Files (x86). Its not there either. The giveawayoftheday is over and I'm not going to waste any more time on it.

Rich,
>"Will this software extract English from a document and then replace it with the translated (Spanish) text?"

The short answer is No, it does not. You can select one of five languages that the original document is written in, and that helps the program know that the characters it has determined are for that language. Some characters deciphered from the image could have several possible outcomes. By knowing the language in that original document, the OCR process can choose the best representation to fit that language.

After you have your final output from the OCR process, like most OCR outputs, you will need to go over it with a fine-tooth comb to ensure the program guessed correctly. Sometimes a Spellcheck run on the output can help with that process. Once you are satisfied with the OCR and any refinements you have made, then you will need to use a language translation program to get to the Spanish version.