best OCR scanner??

Gary Kline kline at tao.thought.org
Fri Sep 2 10:08:13 PDT 2005


On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 03:01:12AM -0500, Nikolas Britton wrote:
> On 9/1/05, Gary Kline <kline at tao.thought.org> 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.)
> > 
> 
> Any scanner will work when your scanning a 2 tone document! The only
> thing that matters is the OCR software and their is only one game in
> town, OmniPage Pro by scansoft.

	Well, the book I want to scan is from 1913:: just text.
	Does this scanner work with FreeBSD? or only Windows?

> 
> BTW it's faster (and won't damage the book) to photograph the book and
> then crop and covert to B&W, white balance, contrast, etc in photoshop
> or gimp etc., and then import the photos into the OCR software. The
> OCR software should produce less errors too.

	Okay, can do; thanks.

> 
> After all is done post the book on gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/
> 
> oh, you should be able to fine some tips about scanning books at the
> gutenberg site too.


	Yep; that's my idea.  I've volunteered for PG, just never
	at the scanning level.

	gary

> 

-- 
   Gary Kline     kline at thought.org   www.thought.org     Public service Unix



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