Where can I find FREE OCR ?

[ritter197]

I went to a number of pages in Google to get a download of a truly free
Optical Character Recognition engine, but they were always teasers.
The download is free, or there is 30 days Trial, but I could not find one
that is truly free.

I want to use it with an Epson Perfection 1650 and convert a scanned image
into a MS Word 2003 document which I can edit.

 

[R. McCarty]

Optical Character Recognition is a segment of software that is dominated
by ScanSoft (Nuance) and a few minor players. Not all applications have
Freeware/Shareware available. OmniPage 15 is still overpriced in my
opinion at well over ~$150.
I did Google around a bit and found a "100% Free OCR" at:
http://www.simpleocr.com/ SimpleOCR
**Know nothing about it or any recommendations - but might be worth a
look.

 

[Opa]

Free OCR software from IRIS came with the purchase of an "all in one
printer" from HP.
Check for IRIS with Google.
Opa,

 

[ritter197]

Thanks a lot. I did download and install the Simple OCR but it unfortunately
does a terrible job in producing the text. It is not something that I could
afterwards edit.

The really strange thing is also that it allows the scanned image with
Simple OCR ONLY again to be filed as a TIFF, not a Document.

I have the Epson Perfection 1650 Scanner and like to scan, look at that
image, convert it to a text (.doc) file and edit words in it.

OCR Simple does not allow me to do it.

 

[ritter197]

The IRIS OCR website says the product costs $ 129.99, sorry, not free at
all.

Another OPA in MD.

 

[R. McCarty]

Even with paid products, OCR is still not a perfected technology.
I've not used a recent OmniPage, so my version is outdated.
However, even on it's best day the resulting OCR'd document
wasn't that good. Too bad the free one wasn't workable. I would
say your only option is to purchase a full-fledged OCR package.
If you do, don't get your hopes up for a 100% editable document.
The Epson scanner will need to use a high resolution and expect
to correct a fair number of "Misinterpreted" words.

 

[Tim]

No decent OCR software will be free. A very good OCR program is ABBYY
FineReader, the 6.0 Pro is available from £29.99 from Amazon UK.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

Even with paid products, OCR is still not a perfected technology.
I've not used a recent OmniPage, so my version is outdated.
However, even on it's best day the resulting OCR'd document
wasn't that good. Too bad the free one wasn't workable. I would
say your only option is to purchase a full-fledged OCR package.
If you do, don't get your hopes up for a 100% editable document.
The Epson scanner will need to use a high resolution and expect
to correct a fair number of "Misinterpreted" words.

I have OmniPage Pro 11 and I have found it to be very accurate. When I've
used it, the hard copies I've scanned have been in good condition. I was
actually amazed at how accurate it was the first time I used it and still
find it to work extremely well.

 

[R. McCarty]

Appreciate the info on the later versions. I've not worked with OCR
and Voice recognition in a while - assume both have improved over
time.

 

[David Candy]

Office 2003 has OCR built in.

 

[Bob I]

True, in a simple sort of manner. But if the OP only has Word 2003, then
that kinda leaves that option out.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Even with paid products, OCR is still not a perfected technology.
I've not used a recent OmniPage, so my version is outdated.
However, even on it's best day the resulting OCR'd document
wasn't that good.

My experience with OCR is that it greatly depends on the quality of the
source document. I've had excellent results with OmniPage Pro if the source
was clean and legible. Not always perfect, but always near perfect.

Too bad the free one wasn't workable. I would
say your only option is to purchase a full-fledged OCR package.
If you do, don't get your hopes up for a 100% editable document.

Good as some of these programs are, I don't think one should ever assume
that their results will be 100% perfect. Good ones have accuracy in the high
90% range, but you should always proofread the results to be sure.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Office 2003 has OCR built in.

I'm not a big user of Microsoft Office, and never realized this before. But
I just tried it and it worked very well. Thank you for pointing this out.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[ritter197]

In this case it is actually a fine printed, clean text document in 2 colors.

But the Free version would even make the nice black printed letters look bad
and even if I would have been able to save it as a text document (which it
did not provide, only TIFF, which is what I get anyhow in perfect form from
the Epson), I would never have edited it, because it looked so bad.

 

[ritter197]

I do have Office 2003. but never saw it. Where is it hiding?


"David Candy" <.> wrote in message
Office 2003 has OCR built in.

 

[ritter197]

I have MS OFFICE 2003.

Where do I find the OCR?

I need it for a non-profit organization I belong to as its treasurer (and
more or less computer handyman)

 

[Bob I]

It is called Microsoft Office Document Imaging (look in MS Office Tools)

 

[David Candy]

It's called Microsoft Document Imaging.

 

[ritter197]

Thanks to all. I will now try it and report back.

 

[ritter197]

Well, here is my experience:

The MS Scanner within MS Office 2003 does a pretty good job of scanning a
document.

The problem is, one can NOT save it as a .doc file and edit it.

That is what I need to do.