Roger Mills wrote:
I've been running AbbyyFineReader OCR software (for producing editable
text from scanned images) for many years. It was free on a magazine
Cover Disk. It used to run fine on Windows XP and, more recently, on
Windows 7 32-bit professional.
I've just bought a new computer which runs Windows 10 64-bit
Professional, and FineReader won't run on it. It appears to install
ok but opens very briefly and them immediately closes. I've tried all
the compatibility options, and running as Administrator - all to no
avail.
Any clues as to how I can make it work? OK, I know that newer
versions are available, but these cost hundreds of pounds (I'm in the
UK).
Is the ancient version you got from some CD taped to a magazine a
16-bit version program? 16-bit programs won't run on 64-bit Windows.
Windows included a WOW (Windows On Windows) emulator to run old
software. Windows XP (32-bit) came with WOW32 which allowed 16-bit
programs to run under the emulator running on 32-bit Windows XP.
64-bit versions of Windows come with WOW64 which allows running of
32-bit programs on the 64-bit OS. There is no WOW32 emulator in 64-bit
Windows that lets you run 16-bit programs under the 64-bit OS.
Backwards compatibility grants running the prior bitwidth programs, not
even older smaller bitwidth programs.
Alternatively, can anyone recommend free or inexpensive software
which does a similar job. I've installed NAPS2 but that seems only to
produce PDF files, and I can't see how to get editable text from it.
SimpleOCR
https://www.simpleocr.com/ocr-freeware/
"System Requirements
SimpleOCR works on any version of windows, from Windows 95-10 and
beyond! Your scanner need only a TWAIN driver, the driver that comes
with a majority of all scanners sold. In short, SimpleOCR will most
likely work with the PC and scanner you already have."
Latest release: looks like back in 2013.
Never used it, just have heard of it. I've rarely needed the OCR
feature, and the software I already have already has an OCR feature.
For eample, Microsoft's OneNote is free and has an OCR feature.
FreeOCR
http://www.paperfile.net/
Latest release: March 2015 v5.4
Uses the Tesseract.js (Javascript) library.