Newsgroups: comp.dcom.fax
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!sparrms!sparatd!mb
From: mb@sparrms.ists.ca (Mike Bell)
Subject: Re: fax to ascii conversion
Message-ID: <1991Jun26.191806.20689@sparrms.ists.ca>
Organization: Spar Aerospace Ltd, Toronto, Canada
References: <1991Jun4.205833.5884@world.std.com> <557@nitrex.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 19:18:06 GMT

In article <1991Jun4.205833.5884@world.std.com> adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) writes:

>Probably nobody gets more junk fax than a newsroom, and we are getting 
>tired of going through reams of expensive fax paper, so we're looking at 
>replacing the machine with a computer and fax board. Our computer gurus 
>have come up with some software that will turn a fax message into a PCX 
>or TIFF file and another program that will convert THAT into ASCII, and 
>want to write a batch file to transmit that into our main system. The 
>problem is this has to be done for each individual fax, because the 
>software they want to use (ReadRight is one of the programs) apparently 
>can't be automated. Unfortunately, it all seems more complex than the 
>average reporter or editor is willing to deal with, especially since we 
>probably get 40-50 faxes (maybe more; I've never counted) a day. Does 
>anybody know of any decent software for turning fax into ASCII, 
>preferably automatically, or, at the least, through macros? Any help 
>would be most appreciated! 
> 
>Thanks!
> 
>Adam Gaffin
>Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass.
>adamg@world.std.com
>Voice: (508) 626-3968. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461 

I just watched a NeXT demonstration of precisely this yesterday. An incoming
fax was displayed on the screen. The user selected the text from this 
image (in a variety of fonts,sizes) and invoked an OCR program to convert
a section of the text into ASCII, which was then passed to a standard mail.

It was all done manually, but I had the distinct impression that it
would have been possible to do this all automatically.

I should try your local NeXT computer salesman. (Hey, and it could play Bach
at the same time too!)