OCR software

My little HP 3 in 1 has built in "scan to editable text" built in, and for the most part, it does okay, except for unusual fonts, which require intensive editing, with the hard copy in front of me. My mother wants 25 years of newsletters (typed in a "handwriting" font my scanner hates) archived digitally, and I'll gladly BUY some software to make this job less tedious and painful. Suggestions?

Johanna

 

Try FineReader.

 

I came across this one in a Google search.
http://www.charactell.com/SoftWriting.html
Softwriting is the only product available anywhere that enables you to convert documents containing handwritten notes and hand printed text into editable computer files such as Word documents. They have a free 14 day trial download.

 

Does Mother want them saved as editable text?
or just want them digitally archived?
if the latter, just scan them as high DPI JPGs. It may be memory intesive, but it is just a digital "microfich "

 

Johanna--OCR programs are not cheap.
ScanSoft sells two of the most used
http://www.scansoft.com/textbridge/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1748914,00.asp
I know I saw a review of these recently. I will keep on trying to find it. But I think the bottom line was that they were very close in performance.
However, you will find that a fairly accurate OCR program ships with most scanners. I have seen close out scanners for $30 at Office Max, Office Depot, etc. They come with "adequate" OCR programs. Might be something to explore.

 

My HP scanner has OCR software that is more than adequate for home use, but it balks at old fashioned typewriter "handwriting" font, especially on pages that were photocopied back in the Seventies. Since this project is very important to my mom, and I am going blind manually editing, if a better software exists, I will gladly fork out the money. I am going to try some of the "free trials" and I will let you guys know what works, and what doesn't. I don't want to spend a lot of money on an OCR that does no better than my current HP software.

Johanna

This page took more than 8 hours to edit, and it still looks rough.

 

If you don't actually need text that has to be edited, it can be saved as an IMAGE. You can use the freeware PRIMOPDF (www.primopdf) to covert the scanned image to a PDF file. It's all very neat and clean.

 

Johanna--OCR for handwritten documents sounds tough. Here is one program that you probably want to avoid
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120163,00.asp
Here is what a Google search on "OCR Handwritten" produces
http://www.google.com/search?source...s=GGLD,GGLD:2004-31,GGLD:en&q=ocr+handwritten

 

The link RayH gave took me to http://www.primopdf/ and gave me the page cannot be displayed. If it does the same for you try this http://www.primopdf.com

 

Jim, it's not real handwriting, it's a "friendlier" font that resembles handwriting that you could use on a typewriter in the mid Seventies. Then the pages were photocopied... add in the maps, drawings, pictures, etc and the editing becomes hmmm... "inventive ", to the point where "retyping" is a possible timesaver. I'm trying to decide if retyping or editing the OCR is more tedious! I never was or will be good at typing, which is ironic because my fingers work independently on a guitar, but on a keyboard, three fingers and a thumb is the best I can manage, if I feel like using two hands.

Johanna

 

Johanna,

I know what you mean about retyping, etc.

I've had the same problem trying to scan Photocopied material from folks. My final solution was to scan the objects and save as a .JPG Photo, or whatever format you want. In a Photo editor a lot of editing can be done. I've even segmented different pieces parts and reassembled them in the Photo editor.

Either way OCR or scan as a photo, it's still lots of work.

I know this may not be what you want..but just thought I'd add my 2 cents.