So far, so good; but the files we used were provided by the program’s developers, so a more rigorous test was required. A 45-page PDF seemed just the ticket (Readiris can’t handle PDFs larger than 50 pages, you’ll have to split those up in a PDF-editing program). We have to say that Readiris Pro 9 managed the challenge with some aplomb. The program whizzed through 45 pages of text in just a few minutes and the end results were superb. Even several tables containing complicated formatting proved no obstacle, each being rendered beautifully. Scanning a page of iCreate proved to be a far greater challenge, though.

Smaller text wasn’t rendered nearly as accurately and the software struggled with the letter ‘s’, frequently mistaking it for the number 5. Still, these were all pretty simple mistakes to spot and correct. If we have any other criticisms of Readiris it’s that the interface isn’t the most intuitive we’ve seen. You’ll need to carefully refer to the manual to find out what everything does. And we also found the application a little unstable, with crashes when quitting out of large files quite common. That said, the results are extremely impressive and, whether you have a library of text-based documents that need digitising or a stack of PDF files that you need to make editable, this program could save you hours of painstaking labour. For that the £100 price is not even worth quibbling over.