Software question (OT)

I really have no idea what newsgroup a software question should go, but
since I'm a loyal Windows XP user, some one here may be able to help.
I have a lawyer who wants me to scan a 30 page legal document and put it in
Microsoft Word so it will be editable. The original is in good shape and my
scanner's OCR will put it in a text file without getting a word wrong. Of
course all the formatting is lost. Years ago I remember using Abby's Fine
Reader and it would save in Word or at least RTF, but as I remember,
margins, fonts, and lines suffered badly and it tooks tons of editing to
get it back to the way the original looked. Is there any OCR software in
this modern day and age that will get it right?



--
--- Long live Fat32! ---

Menno Hershberger wrote:
I really have no idea what newsgroup a software question should go,
but since I'm a loyal Windows XP user, some one here may be able to
help.
I have a lawyer who wants me to scan a 30 page legal document and put
it in Microsoft Word so it will be editable. The original is in good
shape and my scanner's OCR will put it in a text file without getting
a word wrong. Of course all the formatting is lost. Years ago I
remember using Abby's Fine Reader and it would save in Word or at
least RTF, but as I remember, margins, fonts, and lines suffered
badly and it tooks tons of editing to get it back to the way the
original looked. Is there any OCR software in this modern day and age
that will get it right?

Have you considered Adobe Acrobat? See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I see there's an Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog!

Daave wrote:
Menno Hershberger wrote:
I really have no idea what newsgroup a software question should go,
but since I'm a loyal Windows XP user, some one here may be able to
help.
I have a lawyer who wants me to scan a 30 page legal document and put
it in Microsoft Word so it will be editable. The original is in good
shape and my scanner's OCR will put it in a text file without getting
a word wrong. Of course all the formatting is lost. Years ago I
remember using Abby's Fine Reader and it would save in Word or at
least RTF, but as I remember, margins, fonts, and lines suffered
badly and it tooks tons of editing to get it back to the way the
original looked. Is there any OCR software in this modern day and age
that will get it right?

Have you considered Adobe Acrobat? See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I see there's an Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog!

It seems that the Standard version of Acrobat has the OCR featu

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/matrix.html

"Menno Hershberger" wrote in message
news:Xns9E0E4FACD9A4butter@wefb973cbe498...

Years ago I remember using Abby's Fine
Reader and it would save in Word or at least RTF, but as I remember,
margins, fonts, and lines suffered badly and it tooks tons of editing to
get it back to the way the original looked. Is there any OCR software in
this modern day and age that will get it right?

I have used ABBYY Fine Reader (Sprint v/5) occasionally for five years and
encountered none of your problems: but then I do not use MS Word unless
some correspondent requires it. (After all, the aim of OCR software is to
change
a graphical file into an ASCII file, in which fonts and formatting are
secondary.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

"Daave" wrote in
:

Daave wrote:
Menno Hershberger wrote:
I really have no idea what newsgroup a software question should go,
but since I'm a loyal Windows XP user, some one here may be able to
help.
I have a lawyer who wants me to scan a 30 page legal document and
put it in Microsoft Word so it will be editable. The original is in
good shape and my scanner's OCR will put it in a text file without
getting a word wrong. Of course all the formatting is lost. Years
ago I remember using Abby's Fine Reader and it would save in Word or
at least RTF, but as I remember, margins, fonts, and lines suffered
badly and it tooks tons of editing to get it back to the way the
original looked. Is there any OCR software in this modern day and
age that will get it right?

Have you considered Adobe Acrobat? See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...+ocr+site%3Aad
obe.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I see there's an Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog!

It seems that the Standard version of Acrobat has the OCR featu

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/matrix.html

Actually, I have Acrobat 7. I know I can scan directly into an Acrobat file
but I didn't think it was editable. I'll give it a try. Thanks!

--
-- Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it! --

Retired wrote in
news:Xns9E0EA7556923Abutter@wefb973cbe498:

"Daave" wrote in
:

Daave wrote:
Menno Hershberger wrote:
I really have no idea what newsgroup a software question should go,
but since I'm a loyal Windows XP user, some one here may be able to
help.
I have a lawyer who wants me to scan a 30 page legal document and
put it in Microsoft Word so it will be editable. The original is in
good shape and my scanner's OCR will put it in a text file without
getting a word wrong. Of course all the formatting is lost. Years
ago I remember using Abby's Fine Reader and it would save in Word
or at least RTF, but as I remember, margins, fonts, and lines
suffered badly and it tooks tons of editing to get it back to the
way the original looked. Is there any OCR software in this modern
day and age that will get it right?

Have you considered Adobe Acrobat? See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...2+ocr+site%3Aa
d obe.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I see there's an Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog!

It seems that the Standard version of Acrobat has the OCR featu

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/matrix.html

Actually, I have Acrobat 7. I know I can scan directly into an Acrobat
file but I didn't think it was editable. I'll give it a try. Thanks!

OK, so "Retired" and I are actually the same person. Anyway, I did scan a
page using the Acrobat OCR feature and it looks exactly like the
original. You can highlight text and copy it to the clipboard. And you
can search for text. That works good. But you can't edit it. I do
remember the lawyer mentioning they wanted it in Word format so they
could search for text. Maybe editing isn't a requirement. Anyway, I have
learned something new and I appreciate your mentioning Acrobat!

--
--- Long live Fat32! ---