free OCR program?

Whatever it is, as long as you enjoy what your are doing, Gary.
What do you think of Roman's suggestion, does it 'come up to standard'?

Harry.


"Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
...
"webster72n" wrote in message
...

"Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
...
I am at this moment stuck at a remote location,

hope it isn't Iraq...

Actually, it's my other home across town. (Don't ask, it's complicated.)
I'm
"remote" from my main abode and office. Still, the website contstruction
keeps me busy, mostly cursing.

baby-sitting six toy poodles

must be interesting, they are cute little fellows..

What's interesting is a middle-aged couple in a double bed and all those
poodles trying to snuggle up.

and working on a website. Going back to construction in a couple of
days.

Everyone needs a break now and then.

Yup! Can't wait to get back to that real construction and relax for a
while!

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

Dunno, and I don't have the time or patience to look into it, though I might
do so down the road. I'm not one of those who flock to open source apps.
It's my impression that most are rather clunky. (Gonna get shot at for that
one.)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"webster72n" wrote in message
...

Whatever it is, as long as you enjoy what your are doing, Gary.
What do you think of Roman's suggestion, does it 'come up to standard'?

Harry.


"Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
...
"webster72n" wrote in message
...

"Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
...
I am at this moment stuck at a remote location,

hope it isn't Iraq...

Actually, it's my other home across town. (Don't ask, it's complicated.)
I'm
"remote" from my main abode and office. Still, the website contstruction
keeps me busy, mostly cursing.

baby-sitting six toy poodles

must be interesting, they are cute little fellows..

What's interesting is a middle-aged couple in a double bed and all those
poodles trying to snuggle up.

and working on a website. Going back to construction in a couple of
days.

Everyone needs a break now and then.

Yup! Can't wait to get back to that real construction and relax for a
while!

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

Thank you!!! I'll check this out.

Jean

"roman modic" wrote in message
...
| Hello!
|
| "Jean" wrote in message
...
| Anyone know of a decent basic free OCR program that works on Win ME?
|
|
| HP / UNVL Tesseract OCR
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract_%28software%29
| was open-sourced and it is now located on Google Code:
| where development continues ...
|
| Here are the Windows binaries, but I don't know if they work in Windows
ME/98:
| http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/downloads/list
| (there are two win32 downloads - one is built with VC++6 and
| the second with VC++Express)
|
| BTW, it is possible to train it for special characters (with some
limitations)
| http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-o...iningTesseract
|
|
| HTH, Roman
|
|

It didn't occur to me that some OCR (OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION, folks)
programs could input saved images. That ability could actually help me out
a bunch since there are others in my home owners association who can also
help scan the documents.

Our association is a "not for profit corporation". Thanks for the info
about your services.


Thanks,

Jean


"Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
...
| Well, as you've noted, nobody here has a decent recommendation for you,
| other than to try several and see what the results are. If I recall
| correctly, most of the paid versions have trial demos that you can at
least
| test for efficacy before purchasing. While the user interface may not
make
| it easy to find, you should be able to process stored images and not have
to
| scan each time you want to process a page. IOW, you can scan several
pages
| and store them, then try the same images on different OCR apps. Note that
| the best formats for images headed for OCR are loss-less types like BMP
or
| TIFF. JPEGs are lossy compressed and the edges of fonts get blurred. OK
for
| large type, not good for small type or where the paper quality of the
| document is less than pristine. Unless the software states its preferred
| resolution, you scan at the highest resolution your scanner is capable
of,
| but if the paper is dirty or aged, using a lower resolution can actually
| work better. You judge that based upon false returns of text where there
| isn't any, or mistaken returns that visual inspection suggests are due to
| smudging, dirt, etc. It's an acquired talent, even with the good
software.
| Underlining, italics and colors other than black are major tripping
points.
| Be sure to include those cases in your testing if they apply. (Scanning
in
| B&W sometimes helps with colors.)
|
| "...board of directors..." Is that a corporation, government agency, or a
| non-profit? If non-profit, I offer my services for a *very* reasonable
price
| (but you do the scanning.) If not, it would cost you a lot less to simply
| buy the ABBYY software. You won't get the database I usually produce,
| because I use Concordance (www.dataflight.com) -- it's expensive and
| requires that the *user* own a copy. Besides, it's designed for legal
usage,
| and while it would work for other purposes, it's overkill. If you take me
up
| on the offer, just know that I'm pretty busy at the moment with house
| repairs and a couple of other projects. Might be a month or two (or three
or
| four) before I could get to it. You can contact me at
| gryst_at_grystmill.com.
|
| --
| Gary S. Terhune
| MS-MVP Shell/User
| www.grystmill.com
|
| "Jean" wrote in message
| ...
| I want to scan several years worth of minutes for board of directors
| meetings. Obviously I could scan them in as images, but then I'd lose
the
| ability to search through the documents for key words. My scanner (an
old
| cheapo HP) comes with a primitive OCR program, but I was hoping to find
a
| freebie that was less error prone.
|
|
| "Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
| ...
| | I thought you might have... Just wanted to cover the bases. Sorry
that I
| | can't honestly recommend any but the high-priced ones. I once went
| through a
| | lot of testing, and even the ones that cost less than a hundred bucks
| all
| | failed in my book. Too many errors that needed correcting, and no
easy
| way
| | to do that correcting. What are your exact needs? To do a lot of
| scanning? A
| | little every once in a while? Scanning what kinds of documents?
| |
| | --
| | Gary S. Terhune
| | MS-MVP Shell/User
| | www.grystmill.com
| |
| | "Jean" wrote in message
| | ...
| | Being resourceful, I did a google search before I posted here. I
was
| | hoping
| | that someone in the newsgroup could make a recommendation.
| |
| |
| | "Gary S. Terhune" none wrote in message
| | ...
| | | AFAIC, it's hard to find a decent OCR program that you PAY for. I
| doubt
| | I
| | | would consider any free OCR "decent", but then, I'm a
perfectionist
| with
| | | high demands when it comes to OCR. I've done several projects
| wherein
| I
| | | batch-process hundreds or thousands of already scanned images and
| then
| | put
| | | them into searchable databases. (Largest project, and the first I
| did,
| | was
| | | ~650,000 pages.) I use ABBYY FineReader http://tinyurl.com/2pdrbo
| | |
| | | That said, Google is your friend. Here's a few. Why don't you
test
| them
| | out
| | | and report back?
| | | http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=OCR+free
| | |
| | | --
| | | Gary S. Terhune
| | | MS-MVP Shell/User
| | | www.grystmill.com
| | |
| | | "Jean" wrote in message
| | | ...
| | | Anyone know of a decent basic free OCR program that works on
Win
| ME?
| | |
| | | Thanks,
| | |
| | | Jean
| | |
| | |
| | |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|