On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 22:18:04 +0500, karen lewellen wrote:
> i know thi will look confusing but....
Believe me, I do understand your problem,
> On 2000-01-25 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>> Cc: SURVPC LIST <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 10:35:29 -0500 (EST), [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> wrote:
>>> Samuel to the rescue!!.... i think?
>>> On 2000-01-25 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:52:51 +0500, karen lewellen wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>> I never used terminate for the purpose of viewing fax files. Any
>>>> graphics viewer capable of displaying TIF formatted images should
>>>> serve very well for this purpose.
>>> yes, but in dOS? forgive me if I seem to miss the point, but
>>> this factor is rather important for the speech.
>> Yes, there are many DOS programs capable of rendering and
>> displaying TIF formatted images, but here is a problem: There are
>> several different types of TIF images (also known as TIFF images in
>> Windows) some of which might be incompatible with some graphics
>> file viewers capable of rendering TIF images. If I have a graphics
>> file having a four letter Windows extension of TIFF, then I can
>> simply rename the file giving it a three letter extension as TIF.
>> Then I can view the file with a DOS file viewer provided the file
>> were produced in a compatible TIF format
> actually, considering 99 percent of what i must work with istextual material
> and coming form fairly standard sources, getting them to tiff should not be
> the problem.
> if i understand you corectly, a dos based desktop publishing program would
> be able to convert these tiff images into asci?
No, a desktop publishing program, or a graphics file viewer, will be able to
convert a graphics image file, such as a TIF, into a form that is
immediately intelligible and looks like text. For example, there are some
types of digital cameras that record their images directly onto a floppy disk.
I could use such a camera to take a picture of a printed page. The picture
is recorded onto a file in the floppy disk as a graphics image file in TIF
format. I can then put the floppy disk in a computer and load the file into
a graphics viewer program. Then I will see the photograph of the printed page.
Although the text is seen as perfectly intelligible, it is not ascii text.
In order to convert the digital photograph of the printed page to an ascii
text file I will have to print the digital photograph. Then I will have to
scan the photograph with a machine having OCR capabilities. The scanning
machine can output an ascii text file. The resulting ascii text file may
serve as the input for an ascii-to-speech machine. The term "ascii text" is
defined by international standards as a series of characters conforming to a
precisely prescribed system of encoding on electronically readable media.
For example, your first name, as encoded in ascii on electronic media would
consist of a series of the following six hexadecimal numbers: 4B 68 72 65 6E.
A graphics image file produced by a digital camera contains no series of
ascii characters in immediately intelligible form, even if the digital
photograph is a picture of a printed page. You may think of a raw fax file
as a being the same kind of file that is produced by a digital camera. The
original printed page, which the graphics image file captures, is seen
reproduced on the computer screen or on a computer printout. The text is
perfectly intelligible, but it is not ascii text, neither in its input format
nor in its output format. The text is not produced by a program that tells
the computer to output a certain ascii character upon reading its
corresponding hexadecimal number. The text is generated by outputting
millions of little dark spots, each one being printed at specifically defined
coordinates. Ascii text is generated by a program that tells the computer
to ouput a certain defined character upon reading its corresponding
hexadecimal value on an electronically readable media, such as the computer's
memory. You probably have noticed that your computer will print out an ascii
text file much faster than it will print out a textual file displayed in
graphics mode. That is because the computer has to read and manipulate a
lot more bytes to print a graphics character.
I do not know if there exist any programs capable of converting a graphics
file directly into ascii text. Such may exist. I don't know.
>>> by way of example, my wordperfect sends and receives faxs just
>>> fine, but if i try to read them i get only silence from the
>>> speech. this is because as far as it is concerned, there is
>>> nothing there.
There is probably something there. Your OCR probably sees the raw fax
file, i.e. the raw graphics image file, instead of the file as rendered
by a graphics viewer. If you load the file into an approriate graphics
viewer, the OCR should see intelligible text.
>>>OCR will translate these into something that an
>>> ocr device will at least read, but since i need to work with this
If the OCR is reading lines of garbage characters ad infinitum, then it
is probably reading the raw fax file, and not the file as rendered by a
graphics viewer
>>> information, would rather change it over to something like text.
>>> this way i could bring it up in wordperfect and edit away.
>> Perhaps you have tried to get your OCR device to read a raw fax
>> file, which appears as unintelligible data to the OCR. Raw fax
>> files are typically binary image files in TIF format. They must
>> first be rendered by a graphics viewer before your OCR can
>> "translate" them into ascii. WordPerfect, version 5.1 and above,
>> has a graphics mode. You will have to turn on graphics mode in
>> order to enable an OCR, or even a human, to read a fax.
> i use wordperfect 6.0 and in graphics mode, the screen is silent. i do
> understand what you man... i think. it must be in tiff format before using
> the ocr to translate them into asci. ok, but where do i find the ocr
> program?
According to what I think I understand, your OCR is supposed to read textual
characters directly from the screen. Am I right? If this is the case, then
I would guess that either the size of the OCR's capture field, or the font
size needs to be adjusted. You should look for someone who can help you
directly by making on-site observations.
Have you thought of this: Print out the fax and then scan it. Some
scanning machines have an OCR capability. The quality of this feature
and the price of the machines will vary greatly.
>my stand alone device will read, but not translate into ascii,
> because the file is too big for the machine memory. with a computer ased
If you can print out the file, then you can cut it up into smaller segments
and process it one piece at a time.
Well, I hope you have found my suggestions and explanations to be of some
help. I'll get back to you as soon as I read up some more on TERMINATE.
Bye for now,
Sam Heywood
>ocr, however, the drive is the limit.
>> Another possibility is that maybe there really wasn't anything
>> there. If the graphics viewer program attempts to render an image
>> file that is not in a compatible format, it might display just a
>> blank screen.
>>> even an Ocr that worked from within the computer would work, if i
>>> could save the thing.
>> The WordPerfect software can save the fax, but only as a binary
>> image file, not as an ascii file. Here is one thing you will need
>> to understand about faxes: Your OCR will of course not be capable
>> of "translating" such things as company logos that frequently
>> appear on faxes. The OCR can translate only the textual
>> information to ascii.
> i am not working with company logos, only need the text as in resumes and
> such. even if i could get wordperfect to save the fax as a standard
> wordperfect file, it would be great.
>>> Many desktop publishing programs
>>>> can display TIF images and most desktop publishing software has a
>>>> capability for "scaling" the image, i.e. enlarging or reducing
>>>> the image.
>>> but changing the image? if i cannot do this the image will be
>> silent.
>> Silent images? They convey a most beautiful poetic concept to you.
>> In order to change the image for your purposes, it must be
>> converted to ascii in order for it to be processed by your speech
>> machine. What is needed is a program that can convert raw fax
>> files to ascii. I do not know if such programs exist. I will look
>> into the documentation for my TERMINATE program. Then I will get
>> back to you.
> thanks so much, but given what is above it maynot be quite that hard. if a
> dos-based graphics viewer is used before the ocr program can be used to
> convert the file to asci, then i need first a dos bassed graphics viewer,
> and then a ocr program for the computer that will convert the re-formated
> file into asci. is this correct?
>> <snip>
>> All the best,
>> Sam Heywood
>> P.S. ANYONE ON THE LIST WHO KNOWS ABOUT A PROGRAM THAT CAN CONVERT
>> RAW FAX FILES TO ASCII, PLEASE TELL KAREN ABOUT IT.
>> -- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet
>> Client
> Make your own kind of music!
> Karen Lewellen, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Net-Tamer V 1.11.2 - Test Drive
-- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client
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