Is OCR "Built-In" to Scanners These Days?

VFN

Member
Have been helping a friend with an HP all in one. I noticed an OCR option on his 8.1 machine, tried it and was able to edit the scanned document. I was trying to fix a scanning issue on his Macbook and I noticed that if I scanned a document and saved it as an RTF it was editable in Mac TextEdit or in Pages (the MSWord of Mac.) At one time it seemed that you had to have specific OCR scanning ability (I've seen hand-held scanners) but does my RTF example show that OCR is "built-in," that scanned texts are all essentially editable now even in PDF if you save as "Searchable PDF"?

Thanks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Vista Home Premium x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 546
    CPU
    Sempron LE-1300
    Memory
    2GB DDR SDRAM 800MHZ-2X1GB DIM M
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated ATI Radeon HD3200
    Sound Card
    VIA High Definition Audio
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    Samsung 32" HDTV
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
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