re: PDFAlert 'empty document' work around

  • From: "Alan Clendinen" <alanclendinen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:26:25 -0500

Mitch,

When Adobe Acrobat Reader gives you the "Empty document" error message, it 
usually means that the PDF has graphics but no text. The most direct way to 
access these documents, is to open the file with an Optical Character 
Recognition (OCR) program, such as Openbook, Abby FineReader, etc. In 
certain versions of MS Word, there is also an OCR feature, so you might be 
able to open the PDF file with it and have it convert the text in the 
graphic image to readable text. This eliminates the extra steps of printing 
the PDF and then scanning it with an OCR program.

Best regards,

Alan

Mitch wrote:

I experienced the dreaded Empty Document Alert today when attempting to read
a PDF attachment with JAWS 10.
Although I'm just talking about this one example and tedious as it was, I
managed a work around to get the document.
I simply printed the document in spite of the 'empty document' alert.  After
printing, I just scanned it into Word and read it with JAWS.  It adds a step
and sometimes there may indeed be no text to print but in a pinch it may
give you access to the attachment.  Hope this helps or at least makes sense.
Best Wishes, Mitch

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