Extracting text with manual steps

by | Oct 30, 2025 | 0 comments

So close, yet so far away?

I feel a whiplash effect it seems when ChatGPT amazes me with some esoteric explanation (remember to verify boys and girls), but then gets hung up on what seems like the simplest thing.

I was having a conversation with ChatGPT.  I had supplemental information that was printed out; one two page document and one one page document for the record.  I used Google Drive scan document feature, which I love by the way, and seconds later I had two document scans in my Google Drive.  I downloaded each of them, which consisted of a pdf extenstion file of what looks like a photo scan.  I upload the two files into ChatGPT and … it reports it cannot extract any text from either file.  Complete text extraction fail!

After fumbling about a bit I decided to try opening the document scans in Google Drive, and then I asked Gemini to extract the document scan text.  No problem at all!  I then copied the text into Google Docs, to save for future text reference, and uploaded the google docs to ChatGPT which could then be read and added to the context of that conversation.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to use two frontier models to achieve my goals, and also continue to copy and paste stuff.  I should have asked Gemini to create the Google Doc, and I’ll go back later and 

 

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