Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!milton!ogicse!pdxgate!parsely!percy!qiclab!techbook!jamesd
From: jamesd@techbook.com (James Deibele)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs
Subject: Re: Scanner & OCR info wanted
Message-ID: <1991Jan25.215244.27779@techbook.com>
Date: 25 Jan 91 21:52:44 GMT
References: <1991Jan19.003247.23600@techbook.com> <4f660f8c.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Lines: 24

In article <4f660f8c.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> angelini@apollo.HP.COM (Bob Angelini) writes:
>Logitek has their Hand Scanner Plus. It does 100, 200 and 400 DPI. 
>When used with there Catchword OCR software,
>it makes an affordable OCR system. You can buy the scanner bundled with the 
>OCR software for right around $200 (I paid $199.99 at Electronic Boutique).

I'm definitely interested in affordable, but I'm also interested in reliable.
What I've heard of the Catchword software doesn't lead me to think of it as
reliable.  

I've got "The Typist" from Caere, a scanner/software combination, on backorder.
The software from Caere is supposed to be extremely good at OCR (Omnipage) 
with the only competition coming from WordScan.  Both of those software 
programs cost ~ $1000.  The Typist is $600 list.  I've seen reviews of the 
Omnipage software in PC Week, InfoWorld, and PC Magazine that lead me to 
believe the accuracy is as close to 100% as you're likely to find (in the 
high 99.XX range).  The software is (I think, I've only seen very untechnical 
references to what "The Typist" actually is) partially built into the scanner 
(the 286 version of Omnipage requires a co-processor board from Caere, so this
makes some sense).

I see the Scanman Plus going for ~ $150.  But the question is: is there a 
software package that can combine with the Scanman Plus (or the new Scanman
256) and do effective OCR at a price anywhere near $500?