Hi Kate, I would recommend you have a look at this freely available report from our website:
Deciding whether Optical Character Recognition is feasible (PDF document) Document created for the Oxford University Digital Library to introduce character recognition techniques. The document illuminates the key factors in designing a text capture method and provides advice to digitisation projects on how to approach a text capture project and how the various mechanisms of scanning and text capture fit together. http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation.html Personally I find FineReader Professional (not the lite versions) to be a pretty good all rounder that facilitates most purposes. All my best, Simon -- Simon Tanner Director, King's Digital Consultancy Services, King's College London, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, 26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RL Tel: +44 (0)7887 691716 or Admin: +44 (0)20 7848 2861 Email: simon.tanner at kcl.ac.uk http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/ http://api.twitter.com/#!/SimonTanner Richard Urban wrote: > On behalf of Kate Blanch > >> From: "Kate Blanch" <kblanch at thewalters.org> >> Date: October 18, 2010 9:05:21 AM CDT >> To: <mcn-l at mcn.edu> >> Subject: RE: OCR Software >> >> Hi all, I?m seeking recommendations for OCR software that colleagues have >> had had good luck with. >> >> >> We are seeking to use OCR software and a document scanner to aid us in >> cataloging both historical and modern conservation and exhibition materials. >> I anticipate a lower success rate with the older materials and the >> handwritten materials, which is not a deal breaker, but I?d like the OCR to >> at least have handwriting recognition. We?re planning on scanning to PDF >> format and wanting to extract text from the PDF (but scanning to TIFF or >> another format is also an option). There is so much out there by way of >> open-source or proprietary software, we?d consider either. Any >> feedback/advice would be much appreciated! >> >> Thanks, Kate >> >> Kate Blanch >> Administrator, Museum Databases >> kblanch at thewalters.org / 410.547.9000 ext. 266 >> The Walters Art Museum >> 600 N. Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201 >> \www.thewalters.org >> Checkmate! Medieval People at Play July 17?October 10 >> Great Illustrations: Books and Drawings from the Walters? Collection July >> 31?October 24 >> Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic September 19, 2010?January >> 2, 2011 >>
