Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Help with selecting compression scheme
Message-ID: <1991Jun23.035818.19433@looking.on.ca>
Date: 23 Jun 91 03:58:18 GMT
References: <1991Jun22.180357.22145@beach.csulb.edu>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 15

Clearly the best form of "compression" on such items is OCR.  A lot of
the commercial OCR out there is crap, but I hear that some of the very
best -- and most expensive -- actually does the job, although probably not
on handwriting.

To my mind, if I were working on one of those paperless office deals, I
would want OCR, not just because it would save tremendous amounts of space,
but because I don't want a file of images, I would want to be able to
search the files too.

Many people are pushing paperless office image storage systems right now,
but I expect the first one to use decent OCR (with image storage where OCR
is impossible) will wipe all the others out.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473