scanning/wp software

Nancy · Jan 2, 2012

Hi:

I was referred here from the WPR section. Trying to help out a friend and maybe you'll have some answers. A couple people responded to my question that their scanners can do the following, but it sounded like it was proprietary to their particular scanner.

My pal wrote a novel in the '90s and subsequently her idiot ex messed up the discs on which she'd saved it. All she has is a hard paper copy. She'd like to edit and update it for submission. Do you all know of a software program that scans hard copy into a format that would allow her to edit?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Charles Farley · Jan 2, 2012

Wow .. . Are the disks CD-R , CD+R, DVD-R, DVD +R . . Rewritable. . on a removable hard drive?

Al Stevens · Jan 2, 2012

Google "ocr software" to get links to many programs that will do what you want.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 3, 2012

If you have Word and Windows, pretty much any scanner allows you to scan typed documents directly into Word.

Don't know if this works with Mac or not, but I scan all sorts of documents directly into Word.

Charles Farley · Jan 3, 2012

Sorry . . re-read your op. I thought you were referring to recovering data from a messed up hard drive/removable storage

Al Stevens · Jan 3, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
If you have Word and Windows, pretty much any scanner allows you to scan typed documents directly into Word.

Don't know if this works with Mac or not, but I scan all sorts of documents directly into Word.

James, I'm using Word 2002, and it does not have the scanner ocr (optical character recognition) feature you describe. I can scan images in, but those aren't converted to real text. Pages of text go in as images. What version of Word are you using?

Jamesaritchie · Jan 3, 2012

Al Stevens said:
James, I'm using Word 2002, and it does not have the scanner ocr (optical character recognition) feature you describe. I can scan images in, but those aren't converted to real text. Pages of text go in as images. What version of Word are you using?

2007 right now, but I know Word 2003 had the feature. I used Word 2002 for only a couple of months, and can't recall much about it.

But it just occurred to me that you need Office, and not just Word. The feature is found under Office Tools. Microsoft Document Scanning, to be exact. You use this to scan the document in, and once you get all the pages there, you can send them to word as an image, OR as a Word Document.

In older version of Word, you may have to reformat spacing and margins, but it works as well as any other OCR software I've used, outside of an extremely expensive business scanner.

I've scanned a lot of stories into Word using this feature, and it works pretty well, even if it does take a bit of practice.

Al Stevens · Jan 3, 2012

Thanks. The 2002 Office does not seem to have that feature.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 3, 2012

According to teh Microsoft website, 2002 does have OCR capability using the document imaging feature. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/h...anned-document-or-online-fax-HA001034756.aspx

I believe any computer running XP actually has it.

Old Hack · Jan 3, 2012

The programs I've used to do this are not part of Word or Windows. I've bought a few scanners over the years and they've all come packaged with software which can carry out the OCR bit for you.

Al Stevens · Jan 3, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
According to teh Microsoft website, 2002 does have OCR capability using the document imaging feature. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/h...anned-document-or-online-fax-HA001034756.aspx

I believe any computer running XP actually has it.

Thanks. I installed Word, but not all of Office. I'll load up the rest and give it a try. I've got some old manuscripts for which the Wordstar floppies are long gone.

Old Hack · Jan 3, 2012

Do you have the computer files, but not the software to read them? Because if so, you might well find programs online to help you convert them to a readable format.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 3, 2012

Honestly, you might be better off just keyboarding them, unless the hard copy is extremely clear.

Al Stevens · Jan 3, 2012

Old Hack said:
Do you have the computer files, but not the software to read them? Because if so, you might well find programs online to help you convert them to a readable format.

Nope. If I had computer files, I could get the text. I have only paper manuscripts. This goes way back.

Al Stevens · Jan 3, 2012

Medievalist said:
Honestly, you might be better off just keyboarding them, unless the hard copy is extremely clear.

If I have to retype them, they stay in the trunk.

Old Hack · Jan 3, 2012

Medievalist might well be right.

How clear and clean are the printouts that you have? If they're dot-matrix printed, or if they're draft quality and somewhat dim, then they're not going to scan well and you'll have to do a lot of correcting. If they have handwritten notes on them, that'll make them almost unreadable by the OCR software.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 3, 2012

Al Stevens said:
If I have to retype them, they stay in the trunk.

If you keyboard them though, you can edit / revise as you go.

What fun!

Jamesaritchie · Jan 4, 2012

Typing is certainly a possibility. I type all my handwritten manuscripts into the computer, and it doesn't take as long as many fear.

But I've never had a problem with the OCR that comes with MS Office. It's a heck of a lot faster than retyping, and works with every type of document I've tried.

I even use it to scan old tear sheets into my computer, complete with illustrations, and it works very well. It even works with old stories that I typed on a manual typewriter.

The OCR technology does work very well, but I suspect the quality of the scanner is equally important. I have a very good scanner, and it has no trouble with any type of document. If I can read it, it scans well, and the OCR gets the words right.

But there may be another possibility. We have a local print shop that will scan and turn documents into Word files. I don't know how common such shops are, and they charge a quarter per page, but they do an excellent job. I use them for very long documents when I simply don't have the time to do it myself.

Nancy · Jan 4, 2012

THANKS!

Wow, you guys jumped all over my question. And it looks like you had some of your own questions answered. I will pass this on to my friend.

To clarify:

This novel is a 400+ print out. As Al says, if she has to re-type it, it'll stay in the trunk.
As for having someone else do it - quick copy, etc., she has NO money for that, but did check into it.
I believe she has Vista and I'm not sure what version of MS Word.
She and another tech-inclined pal did try a couple software programs (probably OCR, I'm assuming) and no go.
It's a clean hard copy, no notes, etc.

Again thanks so much. I'll get more info from her and if you have any other ideas, let me know. You all rock! You're jump-starting my inner-techie, which would be fun if I didn't have a big, bad deadline.

Al Stevens · Jan 4, 2012

Old Hack said:
How clear and clean are the printouts that you have?

They're pretty good. Back in those days I used a daisywheel printer, (Remember them?) and the manuscripts are my finals after editing. They got bundled in boxes and put in a trunk (literally) in the attic. I just found them a few weeks back when we were renovating the studio.

In one case all I have are two copies of a published book.

Some of the manuscripts have columns of computer code. It will be interesting to see what the OCR software does with that.

scanning/wp software

Nancy

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Charles Farley

Bango Skank

Al Stevens

Jamesaritchie

Charles Farley

Bango Skank

Al Stevens

Jamesaritchie

Al Stevens

Jamesaritchie

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Al Stevens

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Deleted member 42

Al Stevens

Al Stevens

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Deleted member 42

Jamesaritchie

Nancy

Masquerading as normal...

Al Stevens