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Add OCR to items in a collection

Learn how to add OCR text to an existing item in the Project tab or in the Item Editing tab in the Project Client.

Add OCR text to items that have already been added to a collection using the Project Client Find in Collection tab to locate and download items into your Project Client project. Next, use the Add OCR Text function to generate transcripts for the items in the project spreadsheet. For information on activating and configuring the OCR recognition language and selecting fast mode, see OCR settings.

When adding OCR to an existing item, the OCR text is added to the full-text field only. If the selected field already contains metadata, it will be overwritten when the OCR text is added.

After OCR processing has been performed on the images, upload the items to the pending queue. The administrator must approve the items and build the text index before the OCR text is available in the collection.

Add OCR text to an existing item in the Project tab

When you begin this procedure, the files that you wish to perform OCR on must be in the project spreadsheet on the Project tab or in the Item Edit tab. For more information, see Edit items in a collection.

  1. From the project spreadsheet, select the item(s) by checking the checkbox in the item row.
  2. From the Edit menu, click Add OCR Text.
  3. A progress screen displays while OCR processes.
    • If there are warnings or errors, a summary screen will display.
  4. The OCR text is added to the item metadata in the full-text field.
  5. Edit the metadata to make changes.
  6. When you have finished editing, select the item in the project spreadsheet and click Upload for Approval to add the item to the pending queue. The items must be approved by an administrator, who must also build the text index before the OCR text is available in the collection.

Add OCR text to an existing item in the Item Editing tab

When you begin this procedure, the file that you wish to perform OCR on must be in the project spreadsheet and open in a new tab. You can open the item in the Item Editing tab by double-clicking the item thumbnail in the Project Spreadsheet (or by right-clicking the thumbnail and selecting Open in New Tab).

  1. From the Item Editing tab toolbar, click More Actions… drop-down and then click Add OCR Text. For compound objects you can select to OCR the entire compound object or specific pages to OCR.
  2. A progress screen displays while OCR processes.
    • If there are warnings or errors, a summary screen will display. 
  3. The OCR text is added to the item metadata in the full-text field.
  4. Edit the metadata, if you wish to make changes.
  5. When you have finished editing, select the item in the project spreadsheet and click Upload for Approval to add the item in the project spreadsheet to the pending queue. The items must be approved by an administrator, who must also build the text index before the OCR text is available in the collection.