I have noticed that you have expressed a desire to work strictly in a DOS
environment. Is this just from a matter of level of comfort or from a
particular application that requires DOS? I am not even sure if Microsoft
sells or supports a stand-alone DOS anymore. I do not think they have for
over a decade. I think many OCR applications, such as OmniPage support a
batch style use of their Windows product that requires no user interaction.
I do not know of any software that is sold or supported just for use in DOS
anymore.
If you are just more comfortable in a command line interface like DOS was,
perhaps you should consider upgrading to the free Open Source world of
Linux. Linux is available with a graphical user interface, a command line
interface, or both. DOS was originally based on a limited subset of Unix.
Linux is a more powerful version of Unix. There is most likely a free
solution to every software product you use. There is a great, solid
distribution of Ubuntu, a popular flavor of Linux, called Vinux. It is
built for the blind and visually impaired community and is created by the
blind and visually impaired community. It comes with free screen readers
and magnifiers. There are also several free OCR solutions available. I am
developing a bash script, which is like a DOS batch file on steroids, that
uses simple dialogs to scan and OCR any image. The version I will post soon
will use both of the free cuneiform and tesseract OCR commands.
If this interests you, check out vinux.org.uk for free downloads and
information. Or you can ask for more details.
Don Marang
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Eleni Vamvakari" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 12:58 AM
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [Blind-Computing] OCR Software and Scanner Recommendations Needed
Hi,
I know that I included ocr software and a scanner in my original
post but figured I'd make this a separate one, since we might get into
detail. I can't seem to find out which was the last version of
Omnipage to work with DOS. All of my Google searches come up empty.
The only sure thing I've been able to learn is that 3.0 works with it
but I'm pretty sure they continued supporting DOS at least a little
while after that. Do you think Nuance could tell me? If I don't use
that program then I need another mainstream recommendation, since the
adaptive ones seem to have fallen off the face of the Earth.
The amount of scanners out there is huge and trying to sort through
all of them is time-consuming, not to mention almost impossible. So
can someone please recommend a high quality DOS-compatible flatbed
scanner? Please tell me what type of interface it uses if you know.
Also, will I need any kind of special card or adapter to plug it into
the computer or does it use a standard port/slot?
Thanks,
Eleni
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