Windows Photo Gallery

[W J Rice Sr.]

would like to scan documents as editable text documents like I could with
Picture it. Does Photo Gallery not do this?

 

[Malke]

would like to scan documents as editable text documents like I could with
Picture it. Does Photo Gallery not do this?

I don't know whether Picture It had an OCR component, but I suspect it
didn't and you had OCR software installed from a scanner that was
configured to work with Picture It.

When you scan anything, it produces a graphics (picture) file. It doesn't
matter if the scanned item is text - what you get is a picture of text. In
order to edit the text, you have to turn the scanned file back to text
using Optical Character Recognition software ("OCR"). Most scanners come
with a "lite" form of OCR software. Or you can purchase a full version of
OCR software at your favorite online or brick-and-mortar store. Just make
sure that whatever you get is certified to work with Vista. Here's a Google
search to point you in the right direction:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=OCR+software+Vista&btnG=Search

Malke

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

would like to scan documents as editable text documents like I could with
Picture it. Does Photo Gallery not do this?

The result of scanning a document is a graphic image--a *picture* of
the text, not the text itself. To turn that picture into editable
text, you need to use a type of software called Optical Character
Recognition (or "OCR," for short.)

Neither Picture It, not Photo Gallery does this. When you used Picture
It in the past, you used it in conjunction with OCR software that you
must have had installed on your computer. Apparently you now either
don't have such software installed, or don't have it properly
configured to work with your scanner.

Most scanners come with a "Lite" version of such a software program.
For example, mine came with "OmniPage SE." Yours may also have with
it, or something similar, and if you look around you may find that you
have the CD and just need to install it.

If you don't already have such a program, you'll need to buy one to do
what you want.