Scan to Text

[bthatcher]

A little off topic but was anyone had a need to scan a code book for instance into an actual text document, as opposed to retyping it? Freeware would be preferred. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition

There are some links at the bottom of the page.

Good Luck.

--
Regards,
Tim
http://www.theswamp.org/~tim/pyacaddotnet/


wrote in message news:5087456@discussion.autodesk.com...
A little off topic but was anyone had a need to scan a code book for
instance into an actual text document, as opposed to retyping it? Freeware
would be preferred. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

bthatcher wrote:
> A little off topic but was anyone had a need to scan a code book for
> instance into an actual text document, as opposed to retyping it?
> Freeware would be preferred. Thanks.

Autodesk Raster Design (ARD) has one of the best OCR engines I've seen.
Not freeware, but a lot of people who have ARD don't realize that it
has that functionality.

--
Jason

[Anonymous]

If you have Adobe Acrobat it has a Paper Capture function that is pretty
decent OCR

[Anonymous]

The tough part about code books is they are often multi-column format. This
makes "straight-up" OCR tough. Some OCR software can handle it - some
cannot.

wrote in message news:5087456@discussion.autodesk.com...
A little off topic but was anyone had a need to scan a code book for
instance into an actual text document, as opposed to retyping it? Freeware
would be preferred. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Most scanners come with basic OCR tools, did you not get any?
Browse windows shareware sites for what you need otherwise.

--
Dean Saadallah
Add-on products for LT
http://www.pendean.com/lt
--

[Anonymous]

my scanner came with such a tool... but, as trj mentioned, the multicolumn
formatting mucks things up a bit... don't envy the task.

"Dean Saadallah" wrote in message
news:5087717@discussion.autodesk.com...
Most scanners come with basic OCR tools, did you not get any?
Browse windows shareware sites for what you need otherwise.

--
Dean Saadallah
Add-on products for LT
http://www.pendean.com/lt
--

[Anonymous]

>scan a code book for instance into an actual text document

Unless your intended action falls within the category of "fair use," you may be running afoul of the books' copyrights. If you copy, publish, or distribute the material in any form other than a short "quotation," you are probably violating copyright law.

Building codes in the US, for instance, are usually not in the public domain, even though they are adopted by govenment agencies. For example, the International Residential Code says on its first page that it is "a copyrighted work
owned by the International Code Council, Inc. Without advance written permission from the copyright owner, no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, without limitation, electronic, optical or mechanical means."

[Anonymous]

and don't ever copy a music CD

wrote in message news:5088204@discussion.autodesk.com...
>scan a code book for instance into an actual text document

Unless your intended action falls within the category of "fair use," you may
be running afoul of the books' copyrights. If you copy, publish, or
distribute the material in any form other than a short "quotation," you are
probably violating copyright law.

Building codes in the US, for instance, are usually not in the public
domain, even though they are adopted by govenment agencies. For example, the
International Residential Code says on its first page that it is "a
copyrighted work
owned by the International Code Council, Inc. Without advance written
permission from the copyright owner, no part of this book may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, without
limitation, electronic, optical or mechanical means."

[Anonymous]

>and don't ever copy a music CD

Very cute. You just can't get enough of your own wittiness, can you?

As everyone who has followed the news in the last few tyears knows, making a copy of a music CD for your own use, for instance as a backup, is "fair use." Making a copy for your friend, so that he or she doesn't have to buy it in order to get the full use of it, is against the law. Distributing even more copies is even more illegal. Doesn't matter how common the practice may be, it still violates copyright law, and everyone II know who is trying to make a living from their music legitimately considers it as outright theft.

[Anonymous]

I think you better tell Sony and other labels that sell copyprotected CD's
about your "fair use" policy and while your at it, tell the RIAA to take the
"tape tax" off of CD's too.

wrote in message news:5088305@discussion.autodesk.com...
>and don't ever copy a music CD

Very cute. You just can't get enough of your own wittiness, can you?

As everyone who has followed the news in the last few tyears knows, making a
copy of a music CD for your own use, for instance as a backup, is "fair
use." Making a copy for your friend, so that he or she doesn't have to buy
it in order to get the full use of it, is against the law. Distributing even
more copies is even more illegal. Doesn't matter how common the practice may
be, it still violates copyright law, and everyone II know who is trying to
make a living from their music legitimately considers it as outright theft.

[Anonymous]

Did you OCR that page or type it in 😉

wrote in message news:5088204@discussion.autodesk.com...
>scan a code book for instance into an actual text document

Unless your intended action falls within the category of "fair use," you may
be running afoul of the books' copyrights. If you copy, publish, or
distribute the material in any form other than a short "quotation," you are
probably violating copyright law.

Building codes in the US, for instance, are usually not in the public
domain, even though they are adopted by govenment agencies. For example, the
International Residential Code says on its first page that it is "a
copyrighted work
owned by the International Code Council, Inc. Without advance written
permission from the copyright owner, no part of this book may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, without
limitation, electronic, optical or mechanical means."

[bthatcher]

Look, the owner is having the office kid type the amendments to the code book and add that information into the appropriate place. I was trying to save time and improve accuracy. There has been no copyright violation. At all.

[Anonymous]

Look, I said "unless" and "may be" and "if." I didn't accuse you of anything, so for goodness sakes chill out.

[Anonymous]

>Did you OCR that page or type it in

The usual language in copyright notices -- such as the one you quoted back -- will talk about reproducing the work "in any form or by any means," which indicates that there is no absolutely no difference in the copyright owner's mind whether it is scanned ot typed.

The difference in whether it would be considered a copyright violation is the USE of the copy. Generally speaking, if the purpose or effect of the reproduction is to rob the copyright holder of a sale that he would have otherwise made, then he would have a basis to sue.

A typical example would be buying one copy of a book or manual, and then running copies for everybody else in the office. That's not fair use, that's robbing sales. It wouldn't matter if you were dumb enough to manually type it versus running it through the copy machine, the effect is the same. As long as you keep it in house, you probably won't get caught, but it's still illegal.