From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 2 08:01:13 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8204F16A424 for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:01:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: from wproxy.gmail.com (wproxy.gmail.com [64.233.184.200]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12E6943D48 for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:01:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id 36so546867wra for ; Fri, 02 Sep 2005 01:01:12 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=sna8Pwo1er4TNoBLJXN8DKOnyZRNKutB2PRMWkWNPagmEDVKWECY8DuqneQpPxkctt/9l4GfJcky0dH9SMtIPY62KXeaO4pW89g0fvEt6Vqs0LnXb6tFpB5F+p5GtUEW2gh5cc7Oy90Ocs7MPBDyUKF4tULoKcQ64zc8E5xW/bU= Received: by 10.54.2.74 with SMTP id 74mr1389225wrb; Fri, 02 Sep 2005 01:01:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.124.11 with HTTP; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 01:01:12 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 03:01:12 -0500 From: Nikolas Britton To: Gary Kline In-Reply-To: <20050902030726.GA71012@thought.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <20050902030726.GA71012@thought.org> Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: best OCR scanner?? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 08:01:13 -0000 On 9/1/05, Gary Kline wrote: > People, >=20 > I want to scan ~400 pp of an out-of-print and out-of-copyright > book (from 1913) and need to know what the best scanner is > and if there has been substantial improvement in OCR > software in recent years. This book has few footnotes > or different typefaces, so it should make things easier. >=20 > Oh, an if there is something that plugs into DOS/DOZE > and just works, super. I'lll use my W2K box. (Hopefully, > something that plugs into COM0 or COM1. USB okay too.) >=20 Any scanner will work when your scanning a 2 tone document! The only thing that matters is the OCR software and their is only one game in town, OmniPage Pro by scansoft. BTW it's faster (and won't damage the book) to photograph the book and then crop and covert to B&W, white balance, contrast, etc in photoshop or gimp etc., and then import the photos into the OCR software. The OCR software should produce less errors too. After all is done post the book on gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/ oh, you should be able to fine some tips about scanning books at the gutenberg site too.