best OCR scanner??

Roger Merritt mcrogerm at stjohn.ac.th
Fri Sep 2 01:19:18 PDT 2005


At 08:07 PM 9/1/2005 -0700, Gary Kline wrote:
>         People,
>
>         I want to scan ~400 pp of an out-of-print and out-of-copyright
>         book (from 1913) and need to know what the best scanner is
>         and if there has been substantial improvement in OCR
>         software in recent years.  This book has few footnotes
>         or different typefaces, so it should make things easier.
>
>         Oh, an if there is something that plugs into DOS/DOZE
>         and just works, super.  I'lll use my W2K box.  (Hopefully,
>         something that plugs into COM0 or COM1. USB okay too.)
>
>         thanks for any clues; I've never used a scanner before!
>         --yea, no kidding:-)

I happen to have some recent experience on a Windoze machine that may be 
useful. Of the several programs that Google found for me the one that met 
my needs best was Textbridge. The others put every paragraph into a 
separate text box, made correcting layout and formatting a nightmare. 
Textbridge (at least the current version) seems to do a good job as long as 
the print is reasonable clear. All the OCR programs I tried had problems 
putting pictures in the right place. I don't know what's available for 
FreeBSD, since I use my boxen for gateways, not even connected to printers. 
I should warn you, though, scanning isn't quick -- figure about two minutes 
per page (YMMV) plus any formatting fixup you have to do afterward. There 
are industrial-strength applications out there, but they cost.

Can't offer advice about hardware -- I've got an Epson flatbed, pretty 
inexpensive but works good.

-- 
Roger



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