Using OCR on Arabic text

Solution 1:

Since the question was not a request for recommendation of the best program (presumably that would be off topic here) but about either getting new OCR to work the way it seemed it was supposed to, or for any other free converter that works for Arabic text I think it is fair to say that OCR Convert is an answer. This is online, free and requires no registration.

It did not manage all 67 pages at one time (after about 15 minutes the program reported an error) but it has converted 10 pages at one time. The quality/accuracy is suspect (based on translation with Google) but I am happy to consider that a separate issue.