Textbridge OCR w/ EasyPhoto scanner

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My system: Win98SE, 96MB RAM, Pentium 233. I use an “EasyPhoto” flatbed scanner, and it works fine to scan photos or to make copies of just about anything. But I’ve been unable to use the Textbridge OCR software that came on the CD-ROM. Textbridge installs separately from the scanner’s own software and Adobe Photo Deluxe. I tried to install the Textbridge software, and it seems to install OK. However, when I get to where it asks me to scan a test page, all I get in the “Preview” window is a large solid black “page.” That’s after I installed the scanner for Textbridge with a TWAIN driver. The not-so-helpful Help file “strongly recommends” using an ISIS or HP something-or-other driver. I tried the ISIS thing, but it wants me to insert the floppy disk that has the driver. OK, I give up…can someone tell me where to find such a driver? Do I already have it on some other piece of software, or must I hunt for it on the Internet? The company that made my scanner went bankrupt a couple of years ago. Anybody know who picked up Storm Technology’s scraps? Thanks!

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Looking for the driver in all the wrong places…
Since Storm Technology went bankrupt, nobody else has the driver. You can try
http://webhome.idirect.com/~cati/scan.html
for ISIS or HP driver, if it could work. Does your driver or scanner software has an option to switch between “Color”, “Black and White” and “Line Art” modes? OCR software needs “Line Art” mode, without any grayscale grades and colors. You get the black page either your contrast is set too high, brightness is too low or it is Color mode.
By the way, TextBridge isn’t the best software (you probably have 98 version or so), especially in limited editions that come with scanners. With regular newspaper text you’ll have 25-30% errors (that mean, each third or fourth word will be incorrect). You need to scan the text like in children’s books to have no errors.

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Hi kaplinb
I know you for a useful poster – could you be even more so, and make your links live? Please?

Rgds

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Re my post (98390) just now – Before anyone else says it, I know my links are also not live (whoops) but I assumed that they would be, by default. I’ll have to go and check the FAQ/Help files – presumably the instructions are in there somewhere. BTW, I agree with the opinions wrt Textbridge elsewhere in this thread. On my system it wouldn’t even install properly without hanging the system on a reboot!

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Section 18 of help gives you the lowdown on markup. If you click the 1-Click TagPanel (in the message posting window) you are given a little window for automatically adding the tags into your post – hovering your mouse over the icon gives you the actual tags to use – I find it quicker to type them straight in.
Anyway – quick markup for links: [ url]http://www.whatever.com[ /url] – (without the space after the [ characters).

I’ve edited your links as a demo – if you edit the post yourself (click on the button) you’ll see exactly what I’ve done!
HTH.

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Hi Leif,
Thanks for your help. I’ve read S.18 and will use the tags in future. Hope this is not off-topic but I don’t think the ‘1-Click TagPanel’ label is very intuitive for new users. I would have thought that something like ‘Formatting’ or ‘Field Codes’ would be more helpful, with all due respect to the page designer. Anyway, the Lounge is a mine of information and I’m enjoying participating in it. Thanks to all involved.

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Hi Lucas,
I also have 1 of these scanners – neat little device. I only use it for photos so I didn’t try any OCR software. I’m not sure if my package included any but I’ll check. The software was quite old so I went looking for updates and like you, saw that they were out of business. These links may be of interest to you:

http://www.windrivers.com/company/stormtech/easyphe.htm
http://www.driverguide.com/boards/storm-technology/438.html
http://www.best-hardware.com/t2k_storm_technology_inc_.shtml

Hope it helps. Good luck.

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The black scans in two color mode was a bug in the included drivers. Heh…the original CD that came with my old Storm scanner was formatted as an audio CD. The new CD they sent had the black scan bug. Then the update fixed that and introduced the scanner lamp doesn’t turn off bug. The last version supposedly fixed everything. Then they went out of business.

BTW, if you have MS Office 97 or 2k installed you may notice Easy Photo icons starting to take over the toolbar in Word. Read MS KB article Q178732 for the fix.

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Thanks for that information. Storm really did have a short and stormy life, eh? You say the final version of the installation CD finally got it all right. Any idea where a guy could find a copy of such CD? Probably tough, given the defunct status of Storm….

Yes, I’ve experienced the EasyPhoto/MS-Word bug, and more than once. (I had to reinstall my scanner software and ran into it a second time.) Thanks. One more question: I’ve now gotten a new computer that runs with Windows XP. Microsoft’s web site doesn’t list the Storm scanner as compatible–any way to make this scanner work with XP? Or should I just plan to give it to my sister and buy a new one?

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You have mail!

My scanner was the EasyPhoto ImageWave flatbed. I don’t have the scanner anymore, but should have the CD still. PM or email your snail mail address and I’ll send it to youse if you want it.

You could try letting XP search the Internet for a compatible XP driver. In my case, Windows Update had a generic Omnivision driver that made my cheesy Aiptek webcam work okay. Failing that, you could try the following method.

The following is quoted from another tech chat site. I’ve never tried this myself. But a few exclamations of delight in replies lead me to believe it may work for you:
[indent]

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Open a run box and type devmgmt.msc (hit enter) and then find the entry for the unidentified device. Right click on it and select Update Driver.

Make sure you are connected to the internet and if the devices install CD did not set it up right then “Do NOT” put in in the CDR drive. Choose to install the software automatically.

Xp will search your computer to locate the best possible support for that device, if it doesnt find it on your computer, it looks on the internet.

What I gather it does is look/ compare the device ID to locate the best match online.

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[/indent]This guy was trying to find an XP compatible TWAIN driver for a Scanport 3000 and the driver that worked was for a Visioneer 4800 USB.

I suppose this wouldn’t work for someone who needed a driver for their modem.

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Thanks for that information! I might try that. BTW: I got a private e-mail from you, and I replied to that before I saw your latest post. I have two CD-ROMs for my scanner–there’s little to distinguish one from the other, except for some cryptic strings of alpha and numeric characters that mean nothing to me. I’ll keep your information and try that first; then maybe I’ll send for that CD-ROM. Then again, I might just spring for a newer scanner–I’d like to be able to scan negatives and slides, anyway. Thanks a lot!

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