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Which plans have access to OCR search?

There seems to be a lot of confusion and contradicting info out on the web about what your platform is capable of and at what service level needs to be subscribed to in order to search files in Dropbox using OCR text. I'm hoping this thread will assist me and others to get a clear answer.

First, please specify which of these Packages have access to OCR search capability. Basic/Plus/Professional(essentials?)/Family/Standard/Enterprise.

Second, What file needs to be supplied in order for it to work. What are the Requirements we need to follow for it to function? For instance, Can we upload our own PDF files with or without OCR previously applied? Do we need to use your special mobile scanning app, etc....

Thank you in advance, Dave.

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Accepted answers

Jay

Hi @DD Wire, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Image search is limited to certain plans as listed here, and you can search for text in files with certain plans, here.

In general, all plans can search individual files, when previewing the file, and search for text within the file.

If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

All comments

Jay

Hi @DD Wire, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Image search is limited to certain plans as listed here, and you can search for text in files with certain plans, here.

In general, all plans can search individual files, when previewing the file, and search for text within the file.

If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

DD Wire

It appears that all Paid plans now have Text search capability with many file types found in your link and is searchable across all my folders in the Dropbox.com platform. Thats what I need.

(I'm currently on free basic plan) I also see that after you open/preview a file, how you can search each file individually for text. Not what I need but nice feature.

Are there any issues with uploading files that have already been converted to OCR ready?

Megan

Hey @DD Wire let me also jump in here!

There shouldn't be. At least we didn't have any major reports.

In any case, if you come across any issues feel free to let me know and we'll be happy to assist.

DD Wire

Update:

I upgraded to Dropbox Plus to test the Search capabilities. It seems to find some and not others as well as erroneous results in one case. I have tried PDF, PNG, OCR's and Non-OCR documents, also tried the Dropbox Mobile App to Scan documents and by the way those were not finding any searchable text in either file format PDF or the PNG.

I feel like it depends on the condition of the file that is uploaded. Im just troubleshooting trial by error to see what works, I would rather have a Dropbox specialist just tell me the answer on best practices to get good search results.

My best results were from PDF that had OCR applied before uploading. I dont really want to OCR everything since its an extra step and the files become larger.

Did I read that some Higher Tier Plans apply OCR to the documents when they get uploaded?

Thanks, Dave

DD Wire

Still no answers on this thread but I did end up upgrading from "Plus" to "Professional" and it seems like it's applying some form of automatic OCR that is searchable but I'm not really sure. Sources on the web say Professional and Higher tiers get automatic OCR applied but I don't have proof of that except the search results now seem to do a better job at finding my text after the upgrade. Still though, many times search results come back empty or with erroneous results. Not totally impressed, not garbage but not reliable either. Perhaps I'm asking too much. I may need to look into something like Box.com which has a ton more of 3rd party integrations but seems more complicated to setup all the workflows.

Walter

Hey @DD Wire - if you still have issues with searching your files in Dropbox, I'd recommend getting in touch with our support team directly as they'll be better equipped to assist further with account and device specific information.