Greetings,
Just to reiterate a point made yesterday, our scripting interface is
powerful enough to allow anyone with the requisite knowledge and time to
develop such an app today-- without having to wait for us to either
write one or integrate such functionality into Window-Eyes directly.
Regards,
Steve
On 9/28/2011 11:59 AM, David wrote:
Way I see it, if GW - or anyone else - would make onscreen OCR
available, it would sure make a leap forward. But not just forward,
rather even into the modern-day world.
True, there is a load of features that might be of high importance, for
a screen reader to deal with. And likely we could have made a list, that
would range the priority of a number of them, higher than Onscreen OCR.
I am not going to argue about that. But still, more and more cases will
arise, where the onscreen OCR will come in handy. And, as such, I do
hold it to be worth to consider having the screen reader handle those
cases as well. Maybe we are not even aware of all the cases where it
would prove helpful. Today, we are unable to handle this and that task
properly; and hence deem it inaccessible. Why? Because we don't see the
screen. Our screen reader goes quiet. And we, judge that ther there is
nothing on the screen but graphics. In reality, maybe the document or
any other text, might have been fully accessible, if there was such a
thing as Onscreen OCR. With the risk of having a ton of people arguing
me, I do dare to claim, if the thing is not good for any reason - then
why is it that other screen reader manufacturers have ever bothered to
put resources into the matter.
And, as for the legality of performing such OCR, I am not sure about
every country's local laws. Yet, I would think there could be strong
reasons, why any blind person would have his full rights to OCR any
written document. OK, a printed document could have a copyright
statement, that it is not to be reproduced in electronic format. As
such, you could claim, it was illegal for me to OCR that printed paper.
Yet most countries would accept me doing so, realizing that it is the
only way for me to get my hands on the information. When comes to
onscreen OCR though, any such statement will already have fallen to the
ground - due to the fact, they are already electronic - the documents.
The term ONSCREEN OCR, indicates that the document has to be on your
screen first-hand, and you then run an OCR on it. In other words, if an
author makes his document available in a format that shows up on your
screen, that document is already in an electronic format. Hence you are
not reproducing anything at all, and therefore should not be violating
any law. Look upon your OCR as your reading glasses. Are you going to
tell your grandmother, that she is not allowed to put on her reading
glasses? Would she violate any law by using glasses when reading her
newspaper, correspondance, restaurant menus, or ingredience list on the
groceries? Well, you are doing exactly the same thing, only in a far
more hazzled way - with your computer.
----- Original Message ----- From: "shannon" <[email protected]>
To: "Don H" <[email protected]>; "gwmicro" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: WE and OCR
I would agree with you.
I have been looking for a OCR program too and I have had little success.
I downloaded the fine reader demo and I could not make much of it and
now my trial is out of time. It is buy it or unload it, and it put
files all over my system.
I know open book is designed for the blind user but it is so
expensive. I wish there was a way to make one of the less expensive
ones work well.
Shannon
----- Original Message ----- From: "Don H" <[email protected]>
To: "gwmicro" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 10:00 AM
Subject: WE and OCR
I have always thought it would be a great idea to pick one of the
available OCR programs like finereader or what ever create a App to
make it more user friendly with WE and maybe just maybe take some
sales away from FS and Open Book which is so expensive.
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