Technology Question

[Mike Lowe]

I write an informal technology guide for the teachers at my school in which I field questions and provide answers in a newsletter. Here is one I am not sure the answer to, but I'm thinking it's a "no."

"I have a handful of documents that are hard-copy only, no electronic copy, and no time to recreate the hard copy. I've been scanning them at home, but I have to open these documents in Microsoft Picture Manager, and I can't manipulate the document like a regular Word document. Is there a way to scan and then manipulate/change the document? I hope I'm making sense. Feel free to dismiss this if you don't have the time to mess with it!"

Thanks folks!

[jeff061]

Use scanning software with OCR(optical character recognition). Doesn't work 100%, depends on the complexity of the document.

[Buccaneer]

But don't use freeware OCR, not one of them works (i.e., you get what you pay for in this case, unlike other freeware).

[jeff061]

Yep, OCR is not a black and white technology. It's reads and translates the image, some software does that better than others. I don't have enough experience to make recommendations.

[CU Tiger]

Ive had some success with OCR and .pdf files but editing is tough.

Even if you get it searchable with OCR getting it editable I.E. a word document....would be news to mee (I wouldd be very interested if you accomplish this)