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From: chuq@plaid.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Multi-font OCR scanners
Message-ID: <18987@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 15-May-87 15:43:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.18987
Posted: Fri May 15 15:43:06 1987
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Date: Thu, 14 May 87 16:39:00 PDT
From: dick@ccb.ucsf.edu (Dick Karpinski)

I believe that some but not all of the scanners discussed in the last couple
of weeks on desktop have software which trys to generate ASCII text from the
scanned image of the input page.  I believe that I would be most delighted
with one that constructed the PostScript which would generate "approximately"
the page that was scanned, but with the text in ASCII, not bitmap.  

Much too much to ask for, right?

I did take a page of dot-matrix print in to one outfit selling a $2k 300 dpi
scanner with OCR software for the IBM-PC line, but there were several problems:
   1) The spacing on my sample input overwhelmed the fixed spacing OCR
      software available then.
   2) No interface nor software was available for the Macintosh.
   3) Operation seemed awkward and not at all intuitive.
   4) Software costs took the package price up to around $3k.
   5) The best recognition rates seemed to be only 95-98% correct.

I am told that a $36k Kurtzweil multi-font scanner will do just about
everything I want.  (Not sure about a Macintosh interface.)  But I
will never be able to afford that.  Should I wait a few years, or is
one of these current products really capable of reading most of the
submissions to my newsletter so that I can convert them all to some
pleasant consistent font?  That would make my newsletter look more
like a magazine and less like a piece of patchwork.

Dick

Dick Karpinski  Manager of Unix Services, UCSF Computer Center
UUCP:  ...!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf!dick        (415) 476-4529 (11-7)
BITNET:  dick@ucsfcca or dick@ucsfvm           Compuserve: 70215,1277  
USPS:  U-76 UCSF, San Francisco, CA 94143-0704   Telemail: RKarpinski   
Domain: dick@cca.ucsf.edu  Home (415) 658-6803  Ans 658-3797

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Chuq Von Rospach	chuq@sun.COM		[I don't read flames]

There is no statute of limitations on stupidity