A TECH QUESTION
So far as I can tell, I am running Windows 10 on my computer. Does anyone wish to weigh in on what is the best OCR package I can get for converting scanned typescript essays? If they are going to end up as .pdf files, then I will need a good conversion program as well, so an OCR program that is capable of generating WORD files directly would be nifty, if such exists.
There are a bunch of options available.
ReplyDeleteVersions of Word from 2010 onwards, I think, has built-in OCR. For the newest versions you can simply open a PDF in Word and let it go. Failing that, if you have Word and Office your computer may have something called 'Office Document Imaging' installed, which is their OCR programme. Windows 10 allows you to just click the magnifying class icon by the Start button and type this in, the programme will appear if it's installed.
You don't need a specific programme for this. For instance, Google Docs has built-in OCR functionality: it's the same process they use for deciphering the text for all the scans for Google Books. When you upload a PDF into Google Docs, it'll OCR it for you.
Many versions of Adobe Acrobat come with this functionality out of the box. Not the free 'Reader' version, but the one they expect you or an institution to pay for, like Acrobat DC. It's pretty standard for universities to have site-wide licences, so it's the kind of thing you can do next time you're at Columbia or another campus and see if they have a workstation you can use for this purpose.