On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:52:29 -0600 Walter Hildebrandt <[email protected]> dijo:
> Does anyone know if there is a hand held copying device that can copy text > and paste that text into a Writer text file and be able to edit that text in > the Writer text file? There used to exist such items a long time ago. I don't know of any still being manufactured. The problem was not the scanning technology but, rather, the unreliability of the human operators. It turns out that it is very hard to hold the device steady enough. Note that there are two functions involved to achieve the results you desire. The first is scanning, which converts the reflected image from the page of text to a bitmap image. The second is the optical character recognition (OCR) function. OCR is a process where software looks at the bitmap image and recognizes letterforms. The scanning function today is extremely accurate with modern scanners. The OCR function is where things fall apart a bit. Think about those web sites where you have to enter the distorted characters from a bitmap image into a box to be sure you are a human and not a spambot. That's the problem the designers of OCR software face, and it's not trivial. OCR software typically trips up on distinguishing a zero from an o, an s from a 5, and so on. Even the best OCR software used on the cleanest text misses quite a bit. Plan on having to clean it up. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
