[Sygna]

I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?

[[email protected]]

Hello,

I'm sorry what are you trying to do? That part that confused me was when you
said "not being able to scan a form to fill out".

Thanks

"Sygna" wrote:

I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?

[[email protected]]

I read this again. If you have form why are you scanning it?

"Sygna" wrote:

I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?

[Sygna]

Dear Robo,
Thanks for the response. What I have is a form from the VA that needs to
be filled out. My H/P scanner will scan it in using any of several formats,
and my Word 2003 says to use a TIFF, so I did. When I tried to open it in
Word, I got gibberish. Acrobat, of course, won't let me fill in the blanks. I
am starting to feel really stupid here. I used to have a very small program
called 'Fill-A-Form". it was primitive, but it did the job, then I had a
crash and it went to the Cosmic Bit-bucket. Something tells me I should just
fill it out by hand... any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Sygna

[Jay Freedman]

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:08:01 -0700, Sygna
wrote:

Dear Robo,
Thanks for the response. What I have is a form from the VA that needs to
be filled out. My H/P scanner will scan it in using any of several formats,
and my Word 2003 says to use a TIFF, so I did. When I tried to open it in
Word, I got gibberish. Acrobat, of course, won't let me fill in the blanks. I
am starting to feel really stupid here. I used to have a very small program
called 'Fill-A-Form". it was primitive, but it did the job, then I had a
crash and it went to the Cosmic Bit-bucket. Something tells me I should just
fill it out by hand... any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Sygna

When you scan a form, the resulting file is a graphics file, not a Word file.
That's why you can't open it in Word. You could *insert* it into a Word
document, using the Insert Picture From File command, but it would still be
just a picture and you wouldn't be able to fill in the blanks.

If you're sticking with Word (probably not a good idea), you'll have to click
the picture, click the Text Wrapping button on the Picture toolbar, and choose
Behind Text. Then you'll have to insert a text box over each form blank to let
you type in information. For a fairly complicated form, this becomes very
tedious and time-consuming.

It looks like this might be the program you had befo
http://www.sharewareconnection.com/fillaform-genie.htm but the download address
doesn't work anymore. Apparently the originator is out of business.

The only other program I'm aware of for scanning forms and turning them into
fillable documents is OmniForm (http://www.nuance.com/omniform/standard/), but
its price makes it worthwhile only if you scan a lot of forms.

Bottom line: use a pen.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.

[grammatim[_2_]]

You should just fill it out by hand. Firstly, that's what they expect.

But when you scan it, you're making a "photograph" of a sheet of
paper, not a word processing document, and Word doesn't read
photographs.

On Jun 15, 10:08*pm, Sygna wrote:
Dear Robo,
Thanks for the response. * What I have is a form from the VA that needs to
be filled out. *My H/P scanner will scan it in using any of several formats,
and my Word 2003 says to use a TIFF, so I did. When I tried to open it in
Word, I got gibberish. Acrobat, of course, won't let me fill in the blanks. I
am starting to feel really stupid here. I used to have a very small program
called 'Fill-A-Form". it was primitive, but it did the job, then I had a
crash and it went to the Cosmic Bit-bucket. *Something tells me I should just
fill it out by hand... any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Sygna

[[email protected]]

I see. My suggestion is open the form in Acrobat. Do you have Acrobat? Don't
use Reader.

View/Toolbars Typewritter.

You can type anywhere on the form.

Good luck

"Sygna" wrote:

Dear Robo,
Thanks for the response. What I have is a form from the VA that needs to
be filled out. My H/P scanner will scan it in using any of several formats,
and my Word 2003 says to use a TIFF, so I did. When I tried to open it in
Word, I got gibberish. Acrobat, of course, won't let me fill in the blanks. I
am starting to feel really stupid here. I used to have a very small program
called 'Fill-A-Form". it was primitive, but it did the job, then I had a
crash and it went to the Cosmic Bit-bucket. Something tells me I should just
fill it out by hand... any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Sygna

[Sygna]

"It's a form from the VA for information... I have to fill in the blanks.
Think I will do as suggested in another response, and 'use a pen'. LOL

[Graham Mayor]

Jay Freedman wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:08:01 -0700, Sygna
wrote:

The only other program I'm aware of for scanning forms and turning
them into fillable documents is OmniForm
(http://www.nuance.com/omniform/standard/), but its price makes it
worthwhile only if you scan a lot of forms.

The learning curve forOmniForm is quite steep. It is not in the least
untuitive and I am not convinced by the results. ABBYY Finereader Corporate
6 came with a somewhat easier to use form filler, but it appears to have
been abandoned - or perhaps incorporated into ABBYY Flexicapture 8
http://www.abbyy.com/flexicapture/, which I have not yet evaluated.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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

[JR Hester]

If your scanner application includes the option to scan editable text, use
that option to create an editable copy. Older HP scanner software was a dream
in this respect. The PDF scanners only create an image as all the other
posters have mentioned.

GL

"Sygna" wrote:

I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?

[grammatim[_2_]]

It will take him 10 times as long to clean up the OCR output as it did
for him to fill out the form by hand. It's pretty likely that it isn't
straight prose all the way down the page! It's in columns and boxes
with different-length lines and checkboxes and all that.

On Jun 16, 12:29*pm, JR Hester
wrote:
If your scanner application includes the option to scan editable text, *use
that option to create an editable copy. Older HP scanner software was a dream
in this respect. The PDF scanners only create an image as all the other
posters have mentioned.

GL



"Sygna" wrote:
I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?-

[Sygna]

I am tussling now with the 'typewriter'. arrgghhh!

[Sygna]

Yes it is. i could just KICK myself for losing that old 'fill a form'
program. it was small and primitive... i had it for at least 12 years... but
it sure did a great job on any form.

[Graham Mayor]

Sygna wrote:
I am tussling now with the 'typewriter'. arrgghhh!

You might have more success tussling with the pen with which the form was
intended to be used.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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