Why Convert to PDF?
Digital images come in a wide range of file formats, including PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and JPEG-2000. Depending on your use of the images, and your priorities with respect to file size, image quality, and transfer capabilities, you may have different preferences for the format of the files that you work with. In addition, you may work with different types of software that are compatible with specific file formats, dictating the type of images you can use. For a person who handles image files from many different sources, these discrepancies may pose a significant problem. Fortunately, conversion tools enable you to overcome such problems by allowing you to change your files to the format that you need.
PDF files have advantages over other files formats, and so it is common to want to convert to PDF. First of all, PDF has some significant advantages in terms of file size. While known for being excessively large and unwieldy, PDFs are actually ideal for image files because they can be compressed with minimal loss in quality. JPEG files, which are known for being conveniently small, actually lose a lot of information during the compression process, resulting in major image deterioration. Because the tradeoff between image quality and size is so great for JPEG, it is not an efficient image format in situations where detail matters. TIFF files, which are widely used because they are output by most scanners, are very large, and so it is common to convert from TIFF to JPEG or PDF.
The Conversion Process
PDF files are an ideal format for saving images that contain text, because they support lossless compression algorithms. Lossless compression differs from lossy compression because no information is lost in the process, so high image quality is retained. This is important for text because in order to make out the words, the outlines of all of the letters must be clear and sharp. This is only possible with lossless compression. In addition, high-quality text enables you to use OCR tools to make the file text-searchable. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) identifies all of the text contained within an image, allowing you to search through files quickly for keywords, or to copy and paste text. This is extremely useful for people who scan paper documents and save them in digital form, because it allows them to work with them as though they were text files. OCR works well with PDF files because the images are easy for the software to process, and the letters can be identified accurately.
Converting files to PDF is not a difficult process. There are different ways to do it, depending on your resources and your needs. If you are working on a Mac, and have an individual file that you want to convert, there is always a simple option that lets you save as PDF. However, converting to PDF in large volumes may require special software that simplifies and automates the process. Conversion software can convert from different formats to PDF. If you need to process large batches of files quickly, you should look for a product with batch-processing capabilities, so that each image is ready in just a few seconds. PDF conversion tools are available online, or you can purchase one, frequently as part of a PDF compression package. If you are looking for a file conversion solution for your office, you should consider buying a tool such as CVISION's PdfCompressor, which can convert to PDF and then compress and OCR the file, in one simple step. You can download a free trial version of to test it out.