Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!gatech!ukma!nrl-cmf!ames!amdahl!ems!mmm!schultz
From: schultz@mmm.UUCP (John C Schultz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: Document Scanners
Summary: hand-helds are unreliable, page scanners are expensive
Keywords: scanner, hand-held, OCR
Message-ID: <960@mmm.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jul 88 02:45:55 GMT
References: <11536@steinmetz.ge.com> <12415307818.26.WMARTIN@SIMTEL20>
Reply-To: schultz@mmm.UUCP (John C Schultz)
Organization: 3M Company - ES&T; St. Paul, MN
Lines: 33

In article <12415307818.26.WMARTIN@SIMTEL20> WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) writes:
>Since the subject of scanners came up, I'd like to see anyone on the list
>who has had experience with hand-held scanning units, or has done lots
>of input from random published sources, like books, newspapers, and magazines,
>post their comments and opinions.
>

My wife (a librarian) has some experience with hand-held and more expensive
page scanners.  Both types performed OCR internally, spitting out a stream of
ACSII which had to be stored in a PC or something.  She can't recall the name
of the hand-held unit but the page scanner was a Kurzwiel (sp?) which is quite
expensive.  She has promised me some more info which I will pass on.  In the
meantime, her opinion was that the hand-held unit was not usable.

The hand-held unit was very sensitive to the scan speed and the 
precision of the motion across the page. It also had a limited number
of fonts it could recognize.  

The page scanner looked like a FAX machine and cost quite a bit.  It
also had a limited number of fonts but apparently did a much more
reliable job with the fonts it could recognize.

You will also need some program on your computer which will talk effectively
to the scanner - check whether the manufacturer supplies this and how well
things like Lotus, Word or other editors work.  You will have to edit the
scannerr input into usable format e.g. database.

Hope this helps.  

-- 
   john c. schultz         schultz@mmm.UUCP          (612) 733-4047
           3M Center, Bldg 518-1-1, St. Paul, MN 55144-1000
  The opinions expressed herein are, as always, my own and not 3M's.