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From: clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Character recognition
Message-ID: <5858@drutx.ATT.COM>
Date: Sun, 8-Nov-87 23:15:31 EST
Article-I.D.: drutx.5858
Posted: Sun Nov  8 23:15:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Nov-87 06:47:39 EST
References: <641@zen.UUCP>
Organization: resident visitor
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Xref: mnetor comp.ai:1091 comp.misc:1617

in article <641@zen.UUCP>, vic@zen.UUCP (Victor Gavin) says:
> 
> 
> I have been puttering about for the past few weeks with an HP ScanJet (one
> of those 300dpi digitizers). I have been asked to write some software which
> can (given an image produced by the scanner) reproduce the original text of
> the paper in a machine readable form.
> If someone has already tackled this problem, any help I can get will be much
> appreciated.
> 

Yes, there's some software for the Macintosh which is purported to do
just this, with text.  Presumably, like other such systems, it's
pretty much confined to non-proportional fonts.  Since numbers are
often non-proportional even in otherwise proportional fonts so that
columns will look right, this sounds like it would do your job.

There's at least one package which purports to do this; it's called
Read-it!, said to be for 'popular' scanners, which presumably includes 
all the 300 dpi ones as well as Thunderscan etc. which can do more.  
It was apparently demo'ed in 'pre-release form' at MacWorld Expo in August.

It's from:

    Olduvai Software, Inc.
    6900 Mentone
    Coral Gables, Florida 33146
    USA
    Phone  (305) 665-4665

They list it in the September MacUser ad for $295 list.  Reading that,
I find they say it works on "including AST Turboscan, Microtek, Abaton 300,
MacScan, LoDown, Spectrum, Datacopy, Dest, etc."  "Type tables form
most popular typewriter and LaserWriter fonts are included, or you can
use it's unique "learning mode" to teach it to recognize an unlimited
number of fonts, includeing foriegn and special characters." (sic).

They also say, "Read-It TS, a special version of Read-It! optimized
for the Thunderscan is also available"  $149.00 list.  But though I
have and like Thunderscan, I don't know that it's what you want for
high volume.  It's 1/10 the price, and 1/10 the speed, though often
with better looking results for pictures.


Good Luck!

And if you get it and have results, would appreciate mail to see what
it's like; probably others would like a posting too!


Clive Steward