[Don]

"Graham Mayor" wrote in
:

You don't need a scanner! SnagIt will output to a graphics file that
any half decent OCR software will access directly. And SnagIt will
capture the full page (the full document even), not simply half the
screen.

And yes you are right that 99.9% of people will not want to jump
through hoops. It's the other .1% you should be worried about. I will
repeat (because you are deluding yourself if you think otherwise) that
if you can see it you can copy it.

Just for the hell of it I converted a four page PDF using this process
and the only (Finereader 8) OCR read errors were two superscripted
date ordinals and two misread words. It took less than 10 minutes to
produce a Word document that was close to the original, and with a bit
more time it could have been made indistinguishable. It sounds as
though you need better OCR software.



Hey Graham,
You might try AbbyFineReader 9.0 as you'll enjoy the added PDF
capability. You may then ditch your lame Snagit procedure ;-)

With more than 10,000 articles scanned and OCR'd (not sure how many scans
that amounts to, perhaps three times as many or even more), and also having
used AbbyFineReader 9.0 for a short and every extensive trial,

I'm able to relay to you that there is miniscule difference in the manual
editing differences (recognition) between Omni Page Pro 9.0 (which I've
been using for nearly five years--with the aformentioned extensively
tailored dictionary) and Abby FineReader 9.0.
Both consitenly make/made the same OCR errors.
(as an aside; for the past approximate six month, I've been working on
three-colum text of a near standard 8-12 X 11 pages contained within 80-
year-old periodicals.)

BTW, the same basic software that came with the scanner has been used to
digtize more than 12,000 images as well.

Guess We'll just agree to disagree and move on.

Many thanks for your insights and extensive contribution to this forum and
others.

[Graham Mayor]

The 'lame SnagIt procedure' was merely a demonstration that protecting the
format was no guarantee that the material could not be copied. All OCR, as
you are no doubt aware, has limitations, but clearly it is not stopping you
from extracting data from those old documents. Similarly it would not stop
you from copying PDF - it merely lengthens the process.

I may get around to updating FineReader, but for the amount of OCR I
currently need to do, I can't justify the cost. I still have a corporate
version Finereader 6 installed also which has very nearly as good read
performance as 8 and has the advantage of a very useful form filling tool,
missing from the later version.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




Don wrote:
"Graham Mayor" wrote in
:

You don't need a scanner! SnagIt will output to a graphics file that
any half decent OCR software will access directly. And SnagIt will
capture the full page (the full document even), not simply half the
screen.

And yes you are right that 99.9% of people will not want to jump
through hoops. It's the other .1% you should be worried about. I will
repeat (because you are deluding yourself if you think otherwise)
that if you can see it you can copy it.

Just for the hell of it I converted a four page PDF using this
process and the only (Finereader 8) OCR read errors were two
superscripted date ordinals and two misread words. It took less than
10 minutes to produce a Word document that was close to the
original, and with a bit more time it could have been made
indistinguishable. It sounds as though you need better OCR software.



Hey Graham,
You might try AbbyFineReader 9.0 as you'll enjoy the added
PDF capability. You may then ditch your lame Snagit procedure ;-)

With more than 10,000 articles scanned and OCR'd (not sure how many
scans that amounts to, perhaps three times as many or even more), and
also having used AbbyFineReader 9.0 for a short and every extensive
trial,

I'm able to relay to you that there is miniscule difference in the
manual editing differences (recognition) between Omni Page Pro 9.0
(which I've been using for nearly five years--with the aformentioned
extensively tailored dictionary) and Abby FineReader 9.0.
Both consitenly make/made the same OCR errors.
(as an aside; for the past approximate six month, I've been working on
three-colum text of a near standard 8-12 X 11 pages contained within
80- year-old periodicals.)

BTW, the same basic software that came with the scanner has been used
to digtize more than 12,000 images as well.

Guess We'll just agree to disagree and move on.

Many thanks for your insights and extensive contribution to this
forum and others.