From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 2 19:27:08 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 E292816A41F for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:27:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bill@celestial.com) Received: from mail.mi.celestial.com (dagney.celestial.com [192.136.111.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96A4343D46 for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:27:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bill@celestial.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.mi.celestial.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 75821147EE4; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 12:27:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.mi.celestial.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (alexis.mi.celestial.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 31555-01-3; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 12:27:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mail.mi.celestial.com (Postfix, from userid 203) id 7BD96147EB4; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 12:27:06 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 12:27:06 -0700 From: Bill Campbell To: FreeBSD Mailing List Message-ID: <20050902192706.GA31436@alexis.mi.celestial.com> Mail-Followup-To: FreeBSD Mailing List References: <20050902030726.GA71012@thought.org> <20050902170810.GC76575@thought.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20050902170810.GC76575@thought.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at mi.celestial.com Subject: Re: best OCR scanner?? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd@celestial.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 19:27:09 -0000 On Fri, Sep 02, 2005, Gary Kline wrote: ... > Well, the book I want to scan is from 1913:: just text. > Does this scanner work with FreeBSD? or only Windows? As somebody else suggested, you may well be better off ``scanning'' books with a digital camera than with a scanner. It's often difficult to get a book to lay flat enough on a scanner bed to get good scans. I've been planning on getting a photographic copy table that holds the camera at a fixed distance above its bed. I think it would also work best to have a flat glass or plastic sheet that can hold the page flat while it's been photographed, with something to keep the opposite page out of the camera's way. I have to admit that I do all my scanning and OCR on an OS X system, only marginally related to FreeBSD. I use an older HP Scanjet with automatic document feeder (ADF), and the HP software will scan straight to PDF documents. The Readiris OCS software can then OCR the PDF file making it fairly easy to deal with multiple pages. At one point we developed a perl::Tk program that worked with Vividata's scanning and OCR software to scan and OCR large documents from high-end Ricoh scanners with ADF. Bill -- INTERNET: bill@Celestial.COM Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC UUCP: camco!bill PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way FAX: (206) 232-9186 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676 URL: http://www.celestial.com/ Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. -- Jef Raskin http://jefraskin.com/