Converting to text

[Lamylew]

Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine article
to text without having to read it and type the whole thing
up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
thanks

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

You need OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to do that.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Win98 Help - www.rickrogers.org

"Lamylew" > wrote in message
...
> Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine article
> to text without having to read it and type the whole thing
> up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
> only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
> thanks

[Lamylew]

Many Thanks Guys
>-----Original Message-----
>"Lamylew" > wrote in
message
...
>
>> Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
article
>> to text without having to read it and type the whole
thing
>> up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
>> only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
>> thanks
>
>
>When you scan a document, you get a *picture* of the text
(a
>grpahic image), not the text itself. To convert that
picture to
>text, you need a kind of software called Optical Character
>Recognition (OCR). There are several OCR products on the
market,
>and many of them do a good job of rendering the picture
as text;
>however the results are hardly ever perfect, and require
careful
>proofreading to make sure there are no errors.
>
>The product that I personally use for this is called
OmniPage
>Pro.
>
>--
>Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
>Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>.
>

[Ken Blake, MVP]

"Lamylew" > wrote in message
...

> Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine article
> to text without having to read it and type the whole thing
> up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
> only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
> thanks


When you scan a document, you get a *picture* of the text (a
grpahic image), not the text itself. To convert that picture to
text, you need a kind of software called Optical Character
Recognition (OCR). There are several OCR products on the market,
and many of them do a good job of rendering the picture as text;
however the results are hardly ever perfect, and require careful
proofreading to make sure there are no errors.

The product that I personally use for this is called OmniPage
Pro.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

[Alex Nichol]

Lamylew wrote:

>Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine article
>to text without having to read it and type the whole thing
>up manually.


You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition) program.
These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one I use
(excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is FineReader from
www.abbyy.com

--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Jim Macklin]

Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
OCR and you get garbage. If you have a problem getting a
good text copy from the OCR, use the scanner to select the
text by areas and save each column or section (in reading
order) as a separate page. Then you will edit them back
into full pages, run a spell-check and correct the errors
that will still often happen. It is still better than
typing it all.


"Alex Nichol" > wrote in
message ...
| Lamylew wrote:
|
| >Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
article
| >to text without having to read it and type the whole
thing
| >up manually.
|
|
| You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition)
program.
| These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one
I use
| (excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is
FineReader from
| www.abbyy.com
|
| --
| Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
| Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8
bit)

[Ken Blake, MVP]

"Jim Macklin" > wrote in
message ...

> Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
> graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
> OCR and you get garbage.


That depends on the OCR software you use. Better products, such
as OmniPage Pro can handle columns and graphics very well.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



> If you have a problem getting a
> good text copy from the OCR, use the scanner to select the
> text by areas and save each column or section (in reading
> order) as a separate page. Then you will edit them back
> into full pages, run a spell-check and correct the errors
> that will still often happen. It is still better than
> typing it all.
>
>
> "Alex Nichol" > wrote in
> message ...
> | Lamylew wrote:
> |
> | >Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
> article
> | >to text without having to read it and type the whole
> thing
> | >up manually.
> |
> |
> | You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition)
> program.
> | These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one
> I use
> | (excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is
> FineReader from
> | www.abbyy.com
> |
> | --
> | Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
> | Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8
> bit)
>
>

[Lamylew]

Many Thanks Guys
>-----Original Message-----
>"Lamylew" > wrote in
message
...
>
>> Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
article
>> to text without having to read it and type the whole
thing
>> up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
>> only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
>> thanks
>
>
>When you scan a document, you get a *picture* of the text
(a
>grpahic image), not the text itself. To convert that
picture to
>text, you need a kind of software called Optical Character
>Recognition (OCR). There are several OCR products on the
market,
>and many of them do a good job of rendering the picture
as text;
>however the results are hardly ever perfect, and require
careful
>proofreading to make sure there are no errors.
>
>The product that I personally use for this is called
OmniPage
>Pro.
>
>--
>Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
>Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>.
>

[Alex Nichol]

Lamylew wrote:

>Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine article
>to text without having to read it and type the whole thing
>up manually.


You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition) program.
These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one I use
(excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is FineReader from
www.abbyy.com

--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Jim Macklin]

Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
OCR and you get garbage. If you have a problem getting a
good text copy from the OCR, use the scanner to select the
text by areas and save each column or section (in reading
order) as a separate page. Then you will edit them back
into full pages, run a spell-check and correct the errors
that will still often happen. It is still better than
typing it all.


"Alex Nichol" > wrote in
message ...
| Lamylew wrote:
|
| >Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
article
| >to text without having to read it and type the whole
thing
| >up manually.
|
|
| You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition)
program.
| These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one
I use
| (excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is
FineReader from
| www.abbyy.com
|
| --
| Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
| Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8
bit)

[Ken Blake, MVP]

"Jim Macklin" > wrote in
message ...

> Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
> graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
> OCR and you get garbage.


That depends on the OCR software you use. Better products, such
as OmniPage Pro can handle columns and graphics very well.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



> If you have a problem getting a
> good text copy from the OCR, use the scanner to select the
> text by areas and save each column or section (in reading
> order) as a separate page. Then you will edit them back
> into full pages, run a spell-check and correct the errors
> that will still often happen. It is still better than
> typing it all.
>
>
> "Alex Nichol" > wrote in
> message ...
> | Lamylew wrote:
> |
> | >Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
> article
> | >to text without having to read it and type the whole
> thing
> | >up manually.
> |
> |
> | You need a third party OCR (Optical character recognition)
> program.
> | These amy appear on magazine cover CDs sometimes: the one
> I use
> | (excellent and moderately priced as these things go) is
> FineReader from
> | www.abbyy.com
> |
> | --
> | Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
> | Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8
> bit)
>
>

[Lamylew]

Many Thanks Guys
>-----Original Message-----
>"Lamylew" > wrote in
message
...
>
>> Please help. How can I convert a scanned magazine
article
>> to text without having to read it and type the whole
thing
>> up manually. I have tried pasting to wordpad but this
>> only blocks the text and I cannot alter any of it. Many
>> thanks
>
>
>When you scan a document, you get a *picture* of the text
(a
>grpahic image), not the text itself. To convert that
picture to
>text, you need a kind of software called Optical Character
>Recognition (OCR). There are several OCR products on the
market,
>and many of them do a good job of rendering the picture
as text;
>however the results are hardly ever perfect, and require
careful
>proofreading to make sure there are no errors.
>
>The product that I personally use for this is called
OmniPage
>Pro.
>
>--
>Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
>Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>.
>

[Alex Nichol]

"Jim Macklin" > wrote:

>Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
>graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
>OCR and you get garbage.

That is an aspect that Fine Reader handles very well indeed.


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Jim Macklin]

I have found that modern, current OCR do much better than
older OCR and that some sources will cause all OCR some
degree of problems. Pages with multiple vertical columns,
horizontal captions, and graphics can be a problem. If they
copy correctly, fine, but if they don't, using the technique
of selective scanning the page will solve the problem.


"Alex Nichol" > wrote in
message ...
| "Jim Macklin" >
wrote:
|
| >Magazines and newspapers use multiple columns and have
| >graphics and ads inserted on the pages, these can confuse
| >OCR and you get garbage.
|
| That is an aspect that Fine Reader handles very well
indeed.
|
|
| --
| Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
| Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8
bit)