How to remove content from a PDF or picture in Google Drive

How many times have we found an aged association PDF or image, and indispensable to benefit discerning entrance to a content within, usually to find we can't locate a editable chronicle of a file, or duplicating and pasting is unwell you? Or maybe we usually need to modify a PDF or picture into a Word or LibreOffice document, so it can be used for another purpose.

Sure we can squeeze program that will concede we to do only that, though if you’re a Google Drive user, we already have that ability during your fingertips. That’s right, Google Docs does a flattering considerable pursuit of converting PDF papers to unchanging Google Docs. It’s not perfect—it’s some-more an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for PDFs and images—but if you’re looking for a means to get to that changed text, this is a accessible approach to do only that.

How do we do this? Out of a box, it won’t work. Fortunately, a pretence to creation it duty is impossibly simple. Let me uncover we how.

Enabling a feature

Open adult Google Drive and afterwards click on a rigging icon. From a drop-down, click Settings. In a ensuing window (Figure A), make certain Convert uploads is checked.

Figure A

Using a feature

Upload possibly a PDF or an picture to Google Drive. The uploaded picture doesn’t automatically convert. In fact, it will sojourn accurately as uploaded. Once a record is in your Google Drive account, right-click it and name Open with | Google Docs (Figure B).

Figure B

The record will afterwards modify to content and open in a new Google Docs document. I’ve combined a representation picture (Figure C), regulating content from this article, and uploaded it for conversion.

Figure C

The ensuing acclimatisation will embody both a picture and a extracted content (Figure D).

Figure D

You can decider for yourself how good Google Drive did on a conversion. In this case, it strike a spike on a conduct Word-for-word, Google Drive extracted a accurate content from a image. we can now duplicate and pulp that text, though carrying to form it out manually. That’s a time saver we could all use.

The one caveat

If we design Google Drive to successfully open a PDF document, such as a W9 taxation form, as an editable document, you’ll be disappointed. Certainly we can upload a request and Drive will remove a text, though it will be only that, text. Google Drive acclimatisation from PDF or picture is unequivocally only a really absolute and accurate form of OCR.

Even with that caveat, this underline will go a prolonged approach to make your daily workflow most some-more efficient—especially if we spend a lot of time typing out content from PDFs or images.

Also See

• How to re-enable discerning entrance to Google Photos in Google Drive (TechRepublic)
• How to confederate Google Keep with Google Docs (TechRepublic)
• How to implement cue manager Enpass and sync it with your Google Drive account (TechRepublic)
• How to benefit entrance to your Google Drive files from Linux (TechRepublic Video)
• How to forestall Google Drive backup from holding adult changed space on your internal drive (TechRepublic)
• How to beget a Word Cloud picture in Google Docs (TechRepublic)
• Google Docs only ate your homework (CNET)