Credit to El Bandolero for that Abby FineReader link.

[John Corliss]

Just want to clarify that I didn't find this link:

http://www.ilsoftware.it/articoli.asp?ID=2904

It was El Bandolero who mentioned it in the thread with the subject line
"OCR program, free?"

It occurred to me that this opportunity would be missed because the link
was buried in a thread that probably wouldn't be read by several people
who frequent this group. That's because the OCR question has been gone
over so many times.

Once again I want to say though, that if you have no good OCR program,
don't miss out on this. In fact, this program is probably better than
some of the professional versions of OCR programs that were it's
contemporaries at the time. I remember reading a review on it in some
computer magazine and the conclusion was that it was far superior to the
current (at that time) version of Omnipage Pro.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware,
demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware, spyware, time-limited
software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[Ian Jackson]

Just want to clarify that I didn't find this link:

http://www.ilsoftware.it/articoli.asp?ID=2904

It was El Bandolero who mentioned it in the thread with the subject
line "OCR program, free?"

It occurred to me that this opportunity would be missed because the
link was buried in a thread that probably wouldn't be read by several
people who frequent this group. That's because the OCR question has
been gone over so many times.

Once again I want to say though, that if you have no good OCR program,
don't miss out on this. In fact, this program is probably better than
some of the professional versions of OCR programs that were it's
contemporaries at the time. I remember reading a review on it in some
computer magazine and the conclusion was that it was far superior to
the current (at that time) version of Omnipage Pro.

A couple of years ago, they gave Fine Reader V4 and 5 away with one of
the computer mags. There appeared to be no expiry date.

They were OK, but then free versions of 6 and 7 followed, which allowed
the input of PDF files, and generally seemed to be so much better
(although maybe I was just getting the hang of it). However, these were
trialware, and expired after only 15 days. V7 seemed to be able to input
a password-protected PDF (much to the consternation of one of my work
colleagues, who delights in 'protecting' his work).

I actually bought V7 (new download, about $90) because I thought that it
was distinctly better than the freebies. [Note: I felt rather cheated
when I found the that it would no longer accept a protected PDF!].
Nevertheless, if V4 is available free, it's worth a go.

Ian.


--

 

[John Corliss]

A couple of years ago, they gave Fine Reader V4 and 5 away with one of
the computer mags. There appeared to be no expiry date.

They were OK, but then free versions of 6 and 7 followed, which allowed
the input of PDF files, and generally seemed to be so much better
(although maybe I was just getting the hang of it). However, these were
trialware, and expired after only 15 days. V7 seemed to be able to input
a password-protected PDF (much to the consternation of one of my work
colleagues, who delights in 'protecting' his work).

It's a pain, but you can OCR a .pdf file by using the selection tool and
pasting the clipboard into a graphic file. Best is a 300 dpi .jpg file,
with an image size about 1000 pixels across. I tried it and it works
well. Of course, if the .pdf file is large it's going to tedious and
take a long time using this method.

I actually bought V7 (new download, about $90) because I thought that it
was distinctly better than the freebies. [Note: I felt rather cheated
when I found the that it would no longer accept a protected PDF!].
Nevertheless, if V4 is available free, it's worth a go.

Hey, if password protection doesn't allow one to use the selection tool,
even a screenshot of a .pdf file can be pasted into a .jpg file.

If a person is determined, there is a way. 80)>

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware,
demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware, spyware, time-limited
software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[Ian Jackson]

I actually bought V7 (new download, about $90) because I thought that
it was distinctly better than the freebies. [Note: I felt rather
cheated when I found the that it would no longer accept a protected
PDF!]. Nevertheless, if V4 is available free, it's worth a go.

Hey, if password protection doesn't allow one to use the selection
tool, even a screenshot of a .pdf file can be pasted into a .jpg file.

If a person is determined, there is a way. 80)>

Done that, got the tee-shirt etc!
However, the image I get is only 72 dpi, and usually needs a bit
enhancement to get the OCR to recognise it well enough. AS you say,
300dpi is the minimum for decent results. I've asked this question
before, and never got a satisfactory answer, ie 'How can you get a
higher resolution?'
Ian.
--

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Just want to clarify that I didn't find this link:

http://www.ilsoftware.it/articoli.asp?ID=2904

It was El Bandolero who mentioned it in the thread with the subject line
"OCR program, free?"

It occurred to me that this opportunity would be missed because the link
was buried in a thread that probably wouldn't be read by several people
who frequent this group. That's because the OCR question has been gone
over so many times.

Once again I want to say though, that if you have no good OCR program,
don't miss out on this. In fact, this program is probably better than
some of the professional versions of OCR programs that were it's
contemporaries at the time. I remember reading a review on it in some
computer magazine and the conclusion was that it was far superior to the
current (at that time) version of Omnipage Pro.

Then thanks, of course, to El Bandolero!

 

[M.L.]

[Note: I felt rather cheated
when I found the that it would no longer accept a protected PDF!].

MbtPdfAsm is a command line utility that can concatenate multiple PDF
files into a single PDF. Since it totally ignores the protection of a
PDF you can use it to convert a protected PDF to an unprotected one.
There is also a Windows front end for it (which I haven't tried since
I use the command line version).

mbtpdfasm:
http://thierry.schmit.free.fr/dev/mbtPdfAsm/enMbtPdfAsm2.html

BeCyPDFAsm (front end for mbtpdfasm):
http://www.becyhome.de/download_eng.htm

 

[Ron May]

Just want to clarify that I didn't find this link:

http://www.ilsoftware.it/articoli.asp?ID=2904

It was El Bandolero who mentioned it in the thread with the subject line
"OCR program, free?"

It occurred to me that this opportunity would be missed because the link
was buried in a thread that probably wouldn't be read by several people
who frequent this group. That's because the OCR question has been gone
over so many times.

Once again I want to say though, that if you have no good OCR program,
don't miss out on this. In fact, this program is probably better than
some of the professional versions of OCR programs that were it's
contemporaries at the time. I remember reading a review on it in some
computer magazine and the conclusion was that it was far superior to the
current (at that time) version of Omnipage Pro.

Then thanks to both of you. I followed your tips in the "About that
free copy of Abby FineReader 4.0" thread and the tip from Ivan V.
Klattrup on the registration key and had it up and running in no time.

I don't use OCR much, and I have <OT> OmniPage SE </OT> that came
packaged with a cheap Canon scanner I picked up a couple of years ago,
but I like to have more than one option whenever possible.

I don't recall hearing about this one before, but it does an excellent
job! Well worth the download time for anyone with a need for a
freeware OCR progran.

Thanks John for EVERYTHING you contribute.

 

[John Corliss]

John Corliss writes

John Corliss wrote:

I actually bought V7 (new download, about $90) because I thought that
it was distinctly better than the freebies. [Note: I felt rather
cheated when I found the that it would no longer accept a protected
PDF!]. Nevertheless, if V4 is available free, it's worth a go.

Hey, if password protection doesn't allow one to use the selection
tool, even a screenshot of a .pdf file can be pasted into a .jpg file.

If a person is determined, there is a way. 80)>

Done that, got the tee-shirt etc!
However, the image I get is only 72 dpi, and usually needs a bit
enhancement to get the OCR to recognise it well enough. AS you say,
300dpi is the minimum for decent results. I've asked this question
before, and never got a satisfactory answer, ie 'How can you get a
higher resolution?'

Resample the image to more pixels width by more pixels height, then
change the resolution to 300 dpi without changing the image size from
what you just increased it to. Doing this varies from graphics program
to graphics program and I don't know which you use, so I can't really
tell you how to do that. However, it works and this is one actual
instance where (from the viewpoint of the OCR program) you actually CAN
get information from where none existed before. This is only an illusion
though, because if you can't read some text, the OCR never will. If you
can, but the OCR can't, then it's only a matter of overcoming the
limitations that the human eye doesn't share with an OCR program.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware,
demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware, spyware, time-limited
software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[John Corliss]

Then thanks to both of you. I followed your tips in the "About that
free copy of Abby FineReader 4.0" thread and the tip from Ivan V.
Klattrup on the registration key and had it up and running in no time.

I don't use OCR much, and I have <OT> OmniPage SE </OT> that came
packaged with a cheap Canon scanner I picked up a couple of years ago,
but I like to have more than one option whenever possible.

I don't recall hearing about this one before, but it does an excellent
job! Well worth the download time for anyone with a need for a
freeware OCR progran.

Thanks John for EVERYTHING you contribute.

You're welcome, Ron and thanks for the kind words.

I've got Omnipage SE myself, but each time I reinstalled it, it required
product activation or I was limited to 25 runs. Now that Omnipage has
gone through new owners, reactivation is no longer possible, so I worked
out a kludge that went around this. In spite of this, the program still
became problematic after a while. Not only that, but it (at least the
version I have) refuses to open existing image files for OCRing. And to
make matters worse, Omnipage deliberately held back the accuracy unless
you bought Omnipage Pro.

This free copy of Abby FineReader was a Godsend IMO.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware,
demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware, spyware, time-limited
software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[Arne Anka]

I alt.comp.freeware, sa John Corliss utan att tänka först:

This free copy of Abby FineReader was a Godsend IMO.

Yes, but to be honest, it's registerware - not freeware... ;0)

--
Arne Anka

Men det värsta är inte själva baksmällan,
den verkliga pärsen börjar när gårdagens
oundvikliga sanningar börjar rullas upp för en...

<http://starcruiser.dk/agren/>

 

[John Corliss]

I alt.comp.freeware, sa John Corliss utan att tänka först:


Yes, but to be honest, it's registerware - not freeware... ;0)

True, but registerware has long been considered to be on-topic in this
group. And frankly, you don't have to register to get the serial number.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware,
demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware, spyware, time-limited
software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[Ron May]

I alt.comp.freeware, sa John Corliss utan att tänka först:


Yes, but to be honest, it's registerware - not freeware... ;0)

Only to the extent you have to put SOME information into the web form.

I got the key without even putting in a throwaway email address. Just
left it blank.

 

[John Fitzsimons]

Only to the extent you have to put SOME information into the web form.

I got the key without even putting in a throwaway email address. Just
left it blank.

I know there are a few Australians here so they may find it handy to
see that the Australian PC User 200th anniversary magazine has a cover
disk with PaperPort Deluxe 9 on it for free. It would be interesting
to see how it compares to FineReader. If someone does compare it then
perhaps they can report their findings here ?

 

[Bino]

I know there are a few Australians here so they may find it handy to
see that the Australian PC User 200th anniversary magazine has a cover
disk with PaperPort Deluxe 9 on it for free. It would be interesting
to see how it compares to FineReader. If someone does compare it then
perhaps they can report their findings here ?

This is an international newsgroup, so why report on local Aussie
stuff?

Bino

 

[KeithS]

Bino wrote:

This is an international newsgroup,....

....which often has country-specific items posted.


so why report on local Aussie

stuff?

Why not? It was relevant to the item already under discussion.

 

[Craig]

This is an international newsgroup, so why report on local Aussie
stuff?

Pertinence would be my guess.

-Craig

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

My Italian is clearly not up to par and I can't find an English page.
I see two download links for Finereader Pro V.4, both "55MB circa",
one marked (Italiano). I'm downloading the other one, FR_4.0_Pro.zip
(55.3MB) from www.san-com.net right now, hoping it's the right one.

Just went to the registration page and did my best to answer
truthfully, but left the e-mail field vacant), and the next page gave
me the registration code.

Hope I don't have to take Italian lessons to use the software. Is
there any documentation in English available in the download file or
elsewhere?

I noticed the US website makes no mention of any free version.

 

[Ron May]

My Italian is clearly not up to par and I can't find an English page.
I see two download links for Finereader Pro V.4, both "55MB circa",
one marked (Italiano). I'm downloading the other one, FR_4.0_Pro.zip
(55.3MB) from www.san-com.net right now, hoping it's the right one.

Just went to the registration page and did my best to answer
truthfully, but left the e-mail field vacant), and the next page gave
me the registration code.

Hope I don't have to take Italian lessons to use the software. Is
there any documentation in English available in the download file or
elsewhere?

I noticed the US website makes no mention of any free version.

You select english as default language during setup. It has a pretty
extensive helpfile (also in english.)

 

[John Corliss]

My Italian is clearly not up to par and I can't find an English page.
I see two download links for Finereader Pro V.4, both "55MB circa",
one marked (Italiano). I'm downloading the other one, FR_4.0_Pro.zip
(55.3MB) from www.san-com.net right now, hoping it's the right one.

Just went to the registration page and did my best to answer
truthfully, but left the e-mail field vacant), and the next page gave
me the registration code.

Hope I don't have to take Italian lessons to use the software. Is
there any documentation in English available in the download file or
elsewhere?

I noticed the US website makes no mention of any free version.

Default installation is in English.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett or Doc (who uses sock puppets)
for instance. I filter out all Google Groups posts. No adware, cdware,
commercial software, crippleware, demoware, nagware, PROmotionware,
shareware, spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses or warez
for me, please.

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote: .... ....

Default installation is in English.

Thanks John, Ron.