PDFs from databases without OCR?

bethanyann529 · January 12, 2024

Hello all,

I have very recently found that PDFs saved from Proquest and Ebsco I can no longer highlight and annotate in Zotero. Having done some poking around it seems that they are being treated as images and don't have OCR. My best guess is this is to prevent use with AI, but I am finding it very frustrating. Anyone else running into this?

adamsmith · January 12, 2024

Do you have examples? That seems unusual to me.

bethanyann529 · January 12, 2024

Sure, how can I share them with you? Sorry this is my first time using the forum.

adamsmith · January 12, 2024

Share the permalink. I have access to a fair amount of both PQ and EBSCO

bethanyann529 · January 12, 2024

Here are the DOIs:

https://doi.org/10.1080/00236567708584445
https://doi.org/10.1017/S014555320001227X

adamsmith · January 12, 2024

I have access to the first one through T&F where it has selectable & searchable data in the PDF. The second one I get through PQ and it doesn't look like that PDF would have ever had full text embedded at all -- I think that might be the case for older items on PQ in general? (they do have the full text available in HTML on the page though). Newer issues of Social Science History through PQ (such as this e.g. 10.1017/ssh.2021.32 ) do have working full text, so I don't believe this is intentional