Hi Sandy and Chuck, I guess Chuck now has his answer about whether TextGrabber works well with a StandScan Pro from an actual user; I just put in my order using the viphone coupon discount. You're correct that the big problem with TextGrabber is that it doesn't have the same tolerance of skewed images that Prizmo has. It may be hard for list members who have difficulty using Prizmo to believe, but the fact that Prizmo will tolerate a bit more misalignment when you take pictures than most OCR apps, is one of the things that gives it an edge for blind users. And Prizmo does actually give some of the best OCR results -- but I think TextGrabber does a little better if you can align your pages well. You can run your tests on images you take with the StandScan Pro from the camera roll through both apps as a check. I set the "Save Snapshot" switch on the TextGrabber "Settings" page to "switch button, off", since I don't want to store the image data -- only the text results.
Sandy, I also wasn't too impressed by the Say Text app on my iPhone 4, and couldn't understand why you started recommending it when you got an iPhone 4S, even with the improvements under the later operating systems. It turns out that the performance of that app improves a lot on later model iPhones. While I don't get better OCR solutions than with Prizmo under normal conditions, on my iPhone 5, if the light level is too low, I can sometimes pull off a recognition with Say Text where Prizmo would not work. Go Figure. I still have to do a good job of holding the camera and alignment -- it's only an edge on my iPhone 5 if the light conditions are marginal. And I didn't see any improvement on my iPhone 4. It may be the case that ABBYY's Fine Reader Touch app will do what Matthew wants. But it requires setting up an account, and paying to upload the scans to an ABBYY web site through the app. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Mar 14, 12:29 pm, Sandratomkins <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Esther, > > Thank you so much! I had bought Text Grabber ages ago, but was not > impressed at the time. However, I just tried it again, using my StandScan Pro > and was delighted by the results and also the speed of execution. The > interface is much simpler than prizmo too! I shall play with this a little > more, but may well have been, finally, weened from my reliance on Prizmo. One > question, under settings there is an option to save image, or something to > the effect, which is on by default: do you know if it will be OK to turn that > off? I hate having my camera roll filled with unnecessary junk. > > Thanks again, Sandy. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On 14 Mar 2013, at 21:49, Esther <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi Brett, Matthew, David, Chuck, and Others, > > > The problem is that none of the current iOS OCR programs can input > > from a PDF file, so the current workaround involves displaying the PDF > > on the screen and doing a screen capture. Then, you need to use an > > OCR program that lets you input from your camera roll. David gave the > > steps for Prizmo (appended below my post). However, if you really > > want to do an OCR from PDF files, I'd recommend using TextGrabber + > > Translator by ABBYY instead, because it will involve fewer steps, and > > also give you slightly better OCR results if you work from screen > > captures. > > > Remember that if you are taking screen shots that your screen curtain > > must be turned off, and your display brightness must be turned up at > > least above 30 percent. Also, if you have difficulty taking a screen > > capture by pressing the Home and power buttons at the same time, try > > starting to press the Home button slightly before the power button, > > but make sure you do not release it until you can release both > > buttons, and hear the camera shutter sound that indicates a successful > > screen capture. > > > TextGrabber does very good OCR, and can process multiple languages -- > > even more than Prizmo. However, it is more sensitive to exact > > alignment of images than Prizmo, which is why I don't recommend it if > > you are trying to OCR from a camera shot, and you are not practiced in > > taking pictures for OCR without vision. Neither Prizmo nor > > TextGrabber requires you to orient your images with the top of the > > page up, and will work with upside-down or 90 degree rotated images; > > they just won't give good results if you hold your camera skewed. > > However, if document alignment is not an issue, because you're working > > from a screen capture or can use an external stand to align your > > pages, then TextGrabber works well, and you can set it up to OCR your > > camera roll images faster than you can with Prizmo. > > > Configure TextGrabber by opening the app, and then flicking to the > > "Settings VF" button at the top of the screen, and double tapping. On > > the "Settings" screen, flick right to "Enable Crop", which is the > > second entry under the "Photo" heading. By default this is set with > > "Switch button, on". If so, double tap to ensure this is set to > > "Switch button, off". Since cropping images requires interactive > > sighted adjustment which you won't use, and since your PDF images > > should already be selected to maximize the content over the screen > > area, you don't want to use this setting. Turning it off wlll allow > > you to skip processing steps, which you cannot do with Prizmo. If > > you want to add OCR recogniztion languages, you can double tap > > "Recognition Languages" and select additional languages from the > > alphabetical list of languages by double tapping, then double tap the > > "Done" button in the top right corner to exit the "Recognition > > Languages" screen. Exit the "Settings" screen by double tapping the > > "Done" button in the top right corner. > > > Now when you want to OCR an image, double tap the "Album" button on > > the main screen and select your image fromt the camera roll. I > > navigate by moving to the last element with a four finger tap on the > > bottom of the screen and then a flick left to "Album". On the camera > > roll, I also usually move to the last element on the screen, and flick > > left, to get the last image. > > > The nice thing about this TextGrabber configuration is that once you > > double tap to select an image from your camera roll, you just need to > > wait a few seconds, and the app immediately processes the image, and > > you'll hear "Camera" button -- i.e., the "back" button for returning > > to the camera screen -- when it's done. You can just flick right to > > read the OCR'd results. If the OCR process takes a while, the > > intermediate processing screen will say "recognition" if you move to > > the last element in the bottom right corner. With Prizmo, you have to > > keep double tapping the "Next" button in the top right corner to take > > it through the prcessing steps to reach the final result. After > > viewing the OCR results, I usually just double tap the "menu" button > > in the bottom right corner of the screen, then flick left to "copy" > > and double tap. Or, you could email the results to yourself. > > > One final comment: ABBYY now has loads of iOS apps out there that > > sound as though they might be the one you want, so it's very > > confusing. The correct app to use for this is: > > • TextGrabber + Translator (currently $4.99) by ABBYY > >https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textgrabber/id438475005?mt=8 > > > The other thing is that the price for the TextGrabber app has been > > bouncing around like crazy in recent months, with high values of > > $14.99, and a few occasional low values of $0.99. Just two days ago > > this was $5.99. It has been as high as $19.99. I no longer bother to > > announce when this app goes down in price, since most people won't use > > this app. Maybe this will change with the StandScan Pro. > > > There's an earlier write-up of this information in my comment to an > > AppleVis forum post: > > • Re: Prizmo Question > >http://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ios-app-discussion/prizmo-question > > > That includes the instructions for both Prizmo and TextGrabber. > > > HTH. Cheers, > > > Esther > > >>>>>> On Mar 13, 4:19 pm, David Chittenden <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>>>>> You need to use an OCR package. Voice Dream Reader is not an OCR > >>>>>>> package. > > >>>>>>> Prizmo can OCR images from your camera roll. For this solution to > >>>>>>> work, you need to get the PDF page image into the camera roll. > > >>>>>>> 1) Open the PDF file. I do this from directly in mail. > > >>>>>>> 2) Press home and power buttons at the same time to take a screen > >>>>>>> shot of the first page of the image. The screen shot will be the last > >>>>>>> photo in your photo album. If there are more than one page in the PDF > >>>>>>> file: > > >>>>>>> 3) use a three finger flick up to advance the PDF image to the next > >>>>>>> page. Follow steps 2 and 3 until pictures have been captured of the > >>>>>>> entire PDF. > > >>>>>>> 4) Open Prizmo and select text. > >>>>>>> 5) Select the OCR from image option. > > >>>>>>> 6) Remember how many images you captured and count back that many > >>>>>>> images, or start with an empty photo book. Follow the prompts to OCR > >>>>>>> the images and save the resulting text files. You will get a separate > >>>>>>> file for each page. > > >>>>>>> David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA > >>>>>>> Email: [email protected] > >>>>>>> Mobile: +64 21 2288 288 > >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone > > >>>>>>> On 14/03/2013, at 11:06, Matthew Campbell <[email protected]> > >>>>>>> wrote: > > >>>>>>>> Hello all. > >>>>>>>> I'm just wondering if anyone has found a way to take an image based > >>>>>>>> pdf file and turn it in to text from an IOS device? I've got text > >>>>>>>> books from the college that come as image based pdf files and would > >>>>>>>> like to be able to read them on my iPhone 5 or iPad 2 instead of the > >>>>>>>> computer. I can do this, but that requires me to use a computer > >>>>>>>> first to OCR the images of the pages and then save them as text or > >>>>>>>> rtf files. It'd be nice to skip this step if possible, and would > >>>>>>>> allow me to study from an IOS device more effectively. > >>>>>>>> Does VoiceDream maybe do this? > >>>>>>>> Thanks for any opinions and suggestions. > >>>>>>>> Matthew Campbell. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
