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Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 03:01:12 -0500
From: Nikolas Britton <nikolas.britton@gmail.com>
To: Gary Kline <kline@tao.thought.org>
In-Reply-To: <20050902030726.GA71012@thought.org>
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References: <20050902030726.GA71012@thought.org>
Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: best OCR scanner??
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On 9/1/05, Gary Kline <kline@tao.thought.org> 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.