Gary
Tue Aug 07 10:52:36 CDT 2007
Well, as you've noted, nobody here has a decent recommendation for you,
other than to try several and see what the results are. If I recall
correctly, most of the paid versions have trial demos that you can at least
test for efficacy before purchasing. While the user interface may not make
it easy to find, you should be able to process stored images and not have to
scan each time you want to process a page. IOW, you can scan several pages
and store them, then try the same images on different OCR apps. Note that
the best formats for images headed for OCR are loss-less types like BMP or
TIFF. JPEGs are lossy compressed and the edges of fonts get blurred. OK for
large type, not good for small type or where the paper quality of the
document is less than pristine. Unless the software states its preferred
resolution, you scan at the highest resolution your scanner is capable of,
but if the paper is dirty or aged, using a lower resolution can actually
work better. You judge that based upon false returns of text where there
isn't any, or mistaken returns that visual inspection suggests are due to
smudging, dirt, etc. It's an acquired talent, even with the good software.
Underlining, italics and colors other than black are major tripping points.
Be sure to include those cases in your testing if they apply. (Scanning in
B&W sometimes helps with colors.)
"...board of directors..." Is that a corporation, government agency, or a
non-profit? If non-profit, I offer my services for a *very* reasonable price
(but you do the scanning.) If not, it would cost you a lot less to simply
buy the ABBYY software. You won't get the database I usually produce,
because I use Concordance (www.dataflight.com) -- it's expensive and
requires that the *user* own a copy. Besides, it's designed for legal usage,
and while it would work for other purposes, it's overkill. If you take me up
on the offer, just know that I'm pretty busy at the moment with house
repairs and a couple of other projects. Might be a month or two (or three or
four) before I could get to it. You can contact me at
gryst_at_grystmill.com.
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com
"Jean" <Jean@spam.not> wrote in message
news:%23Ic7kfP2HHA.4712@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I want to scan several years worth of minutes for board of directors
> meetings. Obviously I could scan them in as images, but then I'd lose the
> ability to search through the documents for key words. My scanner (an old
> cheapo HP) comes with a primitive OCR program, but I was hoping to find a
> freebie that was less error prone.
>
>
> "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
> news:#2sbLlJ2HHA.4680@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> | I thought you might have... Just wanted to cover the bases. Sorry that I
> | can't honestly recommend any but the high-priced ones. I once went
> through a
> | lot of testing, and even the ones that cost less than a hundred bucks
> all
> | failed in my book. Too many errors that needed correcting, and no easy
> way
> | to do that correcting. What are your exact needs? To do a lot of
> scanning? A
> | little every once in a while? Scanning what kinds of documents?
> |
> | --
> | Gary S. Terhune
> | MS-MVP Shell/User
> | www.grystmill.com
> |
> | "Jean" <Jean@spam.not> wrote in message
> | news:%23CbA6QJ2HHA.1124@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> | > Being resourceful, I did a google search before I posted here. I was
> | > hoping
> | > that someone in the newsgroup could make a recommendation.
> | >
> | >
> | > "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
> | > news:u9RRQUH2HHA.5772@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> | > | AFAIC, it's hard to find a decent OCR program that you PAY for. I
> doubt
> | > I
> | > | would consider any free OCR "decent", but then, I'm a perfectionist
> with
> | > | high demands when it comes to OCR. I've done several projects
> wherein
> I
> | > | batch-process hundreds or thousands of already scanned images and
> then
> | > put
> | > | them into searchable databases. (Largest project, and the first I
> did,
> | > was
> | > | ~650,000 pages.) I use ABBYY FineReader
http://tinyurl.com/2pdrbo
> | > |
> | > | That said, Google is your friend. Here's a few. Why don't you test
> them
> | > out
> | > | and report back?
> | > |
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=OCR+free
> | > |
> | > | --
> | > | Gary S. Terhune
> | > | MS-MVP Shell/User
> | > | www.grystmill.com
> | > |
> | > | "Jean" <Jean@spam.not> wrote in message
> | > | news:e2%23z6WF2HHA.748@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> | > | > Anyone know of a decent basic free OCR program that works on Win
> ME?
> | > | >
> | > | > Thanks,
> | > | >
> | > | > Jean
> | > | >
> | > |
> | > |
> | >
> |
> |
>