does anyone use this? if so, what do you think of it?
(optical character recognition)
I have used it a handful of times, i.e. only when I have to.
It has never been 100% accurate but it has been no big deal to check the results and amend the output where necessary.
I was thinking of using it, I've got a load of documents which need updating into a digital format. (allotment tenancy agreements, rules, membership lists, etc) ?
from memory the last time I used it there were about 6 changes that I had to make to a single page.
Although it sounds a lot it was infinitely better than retyping the whole page.
Why dont you try it with a small sample initially?
I used something similar to get my tryped out stories on to the computer. It obviously made a fair number of errors, especially as the typing was old and faded, but it took little time to use a Word processing program to check the results and was far easier than typing the whole thing in.
I use it to prepare shared texts for the interactive whiteboard. With a good quality original, often no amendments needed and not many per page of less good quality. A big time saver for me - I use Textbridge
I've used OCR lite versions bundled with printer software and it's been useless, but using the full paid for pro versions, with a bit of fine tuning, is excellent. Hope this helps.
Having a go with ABBYY fine reader, pretty good so far!! ;)
Quote from: tonybloke on March 08, 2009, 23:46:17
Having a go with ABBYY fine reader, pretty good so far!! ;)
That's the one I tried. There's a big difference between the lite version and the full pro version.
I find Abby fine reader pro an excellent bit of software!
Beats epson 'smart panel' hands down (this was free software that came with my scanner.)
So I guess you gets what you pay for!
My blind friends have ABBYY pro version, works a treat for them and they use it all the time