Solved Searching in bulk for files within a folder!

[alhakeem2001]

I've got a task at work (where I can’t download any program or run the command tool) to OCR 10000 documents so I left adobe acrobat running during the night to do that.

When I came back in the morning I found acrobat stopped OCR-ing and was crashed, and when I checked the target folder where I kept the OCRed files to see how many files were OCR-ed I found only 4000+/- files OCRed. Now I have to find those files that were not OCRed to proccess them on adobe acrobat .

I have also managed to extract the titles of the files that were not OCRed from the main list and put them in txt file (just the name of the files without the extension) however I couldn't figure out how to split those files from the OCRed one in the source folder, Can you please help ?

 

[Megahertz07]

- Make a copy of the folder with the OCR files. Make sure they have different dates than the original files.
- Rename the extension of the OCR files to be equal to the original files (not OCR).
- Select all original files (not OCR) from the original folder, select copy, go to the folder with the already OCR that you changed the extension and hit paste.
- It will tell that you already have a file with same name and if you want to replace. Press Shift +skip. It will copy only the files that hasn't been OCR to the folder that has a copy (with extension renamed).
- Select sort by date. Select all files with date created by OCR and delete them. The remaining files will be those that hasn't been OCR.

 

[mrjimphelps]

I'm not sure how to do specifically what you are asking. However, you might try to break up the 10,000 files into separate subdirectories. For example, move all of the files which start with a, b, or c into one folder, d, e, f into another folder, etc. Then run the process several times, once on each of the folders you created. In this way, each run of Adobe would have a lot less files to deal with.

 

[torchwood]

any extension can be found, once you click on the required folder
The top right search option can be used, in your case use .txt
these are then listed.

Roy

 

[alhakeem2001]

Megahertz07
Thanks for your reply however, I don't think your solution would work for me.

- Make a copy of the folder with the OCR files. Make sure they have different dates than the original files.

I was working on the whole files on the same date, why should they have different dates ?

- Rename the extension of the OCR files to be equal to the original files (not OCR).

The OCRed files list doesn't have extension names, I don't have a list of the OCRed files but I have attached a spread sheet with a 3 lists/sheets the first one shows the whole files names (with extension, Tif & PDF) the second one it holds again the whole file names but without the extensions, the third sheet holds the remaining of the files list that need to be OCRed (without the extension) . Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

- Select all original files (not OCR) from the original folder, select copy, go to the folder with the already OCR that you changed the extension and hit paste.

Do you want me to overwrite the OCRed files with original files (not OCRed) that means we are going back to the start point!

- It will tell that you already have a file with same name and if you want to replace. Press Shift +skip. It will copy only the files that hasn't been OCR to the folder that has a copy (with extension renamed).

I'm a bit confused here, what do you mean by "Press Shift + Skip" ? and again the ocred files are all converted to PDF once its OCRed while the source files are mixed between Tifs and PDFs.

- Select sort by date. Select all files with date created by OCR and delete them. The remaining files will be those that hasn't been OCR.

The dates won't be that distinguished!

mrjimphelps
Thank you for your reply, your solution is too late now, but I'm using it for the following 10000 files

torchwood
Thanks I know that, but why do you think I need to search by extension? the source and the target folders contain PDFs files where the source/original folder contains both Tifs and PDFs.

 

[Megahertz07]

The OCRed files MUST have an extension. If they are a known type (*. pdf, *.doc, *.tif, etc) and if in explorer options is set not to show, you won't see the extension. But they have one.
Open Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Folder Options - View Tab - Un mark "Hide extensions for known type". For security reasons it should always remain un marked.
Once you find out what extension you have on the OCR files, please report.

 

[alhakeem2001]

#Megahertz07

Well I think it's my mistake because I didn't make it clrear to you, The OCRed files have the Extension PDF as a standard format for any OCRed file, what I was talking about is the extensions on the list that I send you, Did you check that ?

 

[Megahertz07]

Yes I did.
What name is given to the OCR file when a source file has a name ACE87603...tif?
The name will be the same but with a pdf extension (ACE87603...pdf)?

 

[alhakeem2001]

Yes indeed, it will have the same name with the pdf extension

 

[Megahertz07]

You may not had understood the solution I've posted (#2) but it will work.
Can you run a cmd file?
Lets make a test

Open notepad and paste the command below

time
pause

Save it as test.cmd on your desktop an then run it.
It will show the computer time.
Hit enter twice.

 

[alhakeem2001]

No I can't run CMD at work, but I can run bat files, at the moment I'm at home until Monday, I will then give that a try. Thanks

 

[alhakeem2001]

#Megahertz07

This is an update to confirm that I have tried the test cmd you have suggested and it worked with me, what is next now ?

 

[alhakeem2001]

- Make a copy of the folder with the OCR files. Make sure they have different dates than the original files.
- Rename the extension of the OCR files to be equal to the original files (not OCR).
- Select all original files (not OCR) from the original folder, select copy, go to the folder with the already OCR that you changed the extension and hit paste.
- It will tell that you already have a file with same name and if you want to replace. Press Shift +skip. It will copy only the files that hasn't been OCR to the folder that has a copy (with extension renamed).
- Select sort by date. Select all files with date created by OCR and delete them. The remaining files will be those that hasn't been OCR.

The Problem is that I don't know any more what files in the original folder had a Tif or pdf extension ! whey are mixed and again once it's OCR-ed it turns to pdf as I earlier highlighted .

 

[Megahertz07]

Lets work fist to separate the original files by type. As I can see you have two types: Tif an PDF
Make two folders: Orig_tif and Org_pdf.
Make two other folders: OCR_tif and OCR_pdf.
- On the folders that you have ALL original files (tif and pdf), on the top column select by type. It will put the pdf files fist and then the tif after.
- Select all tif files and COPY to Orig_tif. Then select the remaining pdf files and COPY to Orig_pdf.
- Copy ALL the OCR files (~4.000) to OCR_tif and to OCR_pdf

Make a batch file
rename *.pdf *.tif

Save it as rename.cmd and move it to OCR_tif folder created above.
Execute rename.cmd. All files on the OCR_tif folder created above will be renamed from *.pdf to *.tif

Tif files:
Select ALL the original tif files from Orig_tif folder and copy (ctrl+A and Ctrl+C) and paste on the OCR_tif folder (Ctrl+V). As there are many files with the same name it will ask if you want to replace them. Select "do the same for the other files" and hit NO.
Only the tif files that hasn't been OCR will be copied.
Now on the OCR_tif folder you will have all OCR ed files (tif and pdf) and the non OCR tif files. Select order by date. Select all files that has the date you did the OCR (~4,000) and delete them. The remaining files will be the tif files that hasn't been OCR.

Pdf files:
Select ALL the original pdf files from Orig_pdf folder and copy (ctrl+A and Ctrl+C) and paste on the OCR_pdf folder (Ctrl+V). As there are many files with the same name it will ask if you want to replace them. Select "do the same for the other files" and hit NO.
Only the pdf files that hasn't been OCR will be copied.
Now on the OCR_pdf folder you will have all OCR ed files (tif and pdf) and the non OCR pdf files. Select order by date. Select all files that has the date you did the OCR (~4,000) and delete them. The remaining files will be the pdf files that hasn't been OCR.

 

[alhakeem2001]

Thanks #Megahertz07 I will give it a try, however if you can clarify that, I don't have tif OCR_ed files, only pdfs, what should I put in the OCR_tif folder ?

Make two other folders: OCR_tif and OCR_pdf.

 

[Megahertz07]

Please read post #14 carefully.
Yes you do have tif OCR_ed files.
When a tif file is OCR by acrobat, it give you a pdf file with same name. Original file = tif , OCR ed file = pdf. Same name, different type (extension).

 

[alhakeem2001]

Same name, different type (extension).

That made it clear, because I thought you meant the name with the extension. Thanks again

 

[Megahertz07]

Did you succeed?

 

[alhakeem2001]

Yes, Thank you very much .

 

[alhakeem2001]

#Megahertz07

Thank you again for your tip that was really helpful .

Now in order to avoid that in the future and going through all that procedure, I would like to know if there is a way in the "Adobe acrobat DC" to force it to log in all the OCR problems rather than just crashing leaving me with thousands of files that I have to sort out the way you showed me in this post to extract only the files I have not OCRed?

I'm saying that because I’m running the OCR engine on another desktop "Adobe acrobat DC" and once it counters an error with the OCR a popup window displays on screen showing an error accrued and logging it into a txt file at specific location (I have predefined it myself) and then I go to that log file and get all the file names and start fixing them individually , The thing is I have done that on both desktops however on one of them when I leave the OCR for the night , it crashes and the AA DC won’t generate any error log file and consequently, I lose the tracking of which files were OCRed and which one are not ! any idea why is that happening or what I'm missing here ? I can of course open I a new post for this question but I thought that you might got into the same issue before and you have a quick fix for that !