Best OCR Win XP Pro

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Looking for recommendation for best OCR software for home–not heavy business–use.
Want to scan in records, written reports, documents, assorted journal and magazine articles-mostly text some color but black and white printer using HP Scan Jet 5300C with of course terrible intrinsic OCR–would use mostly 8.5 X 11 documents to scan but some odd-sized magazines and journals.

Looking hard at Omni Page Pro 12 from Scan Soft–remember some issues with XP on previous threads.Wonder if they were resolved to satisfaction and what people knowledgable in this area like to use–no previous experience with OCR software.

I’m trying to use it to get rid of as much paper as I can.

Thanks much,

defrag

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Start here? “OCR: The Best Yet,” PC Magazine, Oct. 15, 2002

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Thanks a lot –good start.

defrag

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If you’re “just” looking to get rid of paper, why not just scan and save files? IMHO, most OCR software will not do the job in a large majority of cases! Documents that are not too clean in appearance, or have things like dividing lines, boxes and such (other than plain text), handwritten entries and so on, will not “OCR” well, if at all. Unless you have need to edit these scans in a text editor, I think you might be wasting time and money on OCR software. But opinions are like (certain body parts), everybody’s got one, including me!

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I don’t need to edit them at all–so this might be the right advice. I did have trouble when I wanted to fill out a simple form with the low end OCR in the HP scanner, but that comes under the category of editing–it jumbled every simple line so badly I just made my own form in Word Pad and subbed it–a simple claim form–but I’m really after just saving documents or magazine / journal/newspaper articles and some records in files and cleaning up paper and I had no idea how they would simply scan and if OCR is needed to scan say an average article from PC mag with color diagrams and pictures. Obviously have not used the scanner for much yet but I will.

defrag

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Magazine and newspaper articles don’t scan well. The light from the scanner tends to pick up the back side of the page as well as the front side that you are trying to scan.

Even high quality magazines suffer from this.

My is that scanning to an image really may be your best bet, although the quality may not be what you would like.

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Another towards your software. In general I agree that just scanning in and saving would be your best choice now. Preparing for the future on your scans you may wish to use a 300dpi choice as OCR software likes that setting.

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I have been using OmniPage Pro 12 and have had NO problems with magazine and newspaper articles. Some of these wrer printed in the early 1900′ s or even the late 1800’s. They are a bit orange but I can still scan a the OCR works fine.

Check it out at http://www.scansoft.com/omnipage/%5B/url%5D

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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It sounds like they have made improvements then.

I use OmniPage Pro 10 and I get bleed through from newspapers and magazines.

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I have a way that solves the ‘bleed’ problem. It is to use a black sheet of paper or light card behind the text to be scanned. This stops the black text on the back of thin newsprint being ‘seen’ by the scanner and improves OCRecognition rates.

HTH, Leigh

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Man, that’s a good one! I like that suggestion and will try it the next time. THANX!

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Yes, thanks. This is a great idea.

I think I’ll have to try it as well the next time I get bleed through.

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As usual, KT, can’t fool you with language cleanup! You’re right on!

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I don’t know how it stacks up against dedicated ocr and scanning apps like TypeReader and Omnipro, etc.,
but Office XP come with imaging and scanning software. It works fine.

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