Can Office use OCR to read in handwritten documents ?

[miksoft]

Want to convert many handwritten pages into text in MS Word.

 

[Mary Sauer]

You need a tablet pc and OneNote...

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Miksoft,

MS Office apps can generally accept OCR results from
a variety of brands of Optical Character Recognition,
(i.e. Word, Excel do not in themselves possess an ability
to do the recognition). The MS Office Document Imaging app
will attempt to 'read' and turn things into text but some
of the 3rd party OCR apps are stronger in their abilities.

The ability to process 'ink' (handwritten notes) into
documents while it ships with Office comes from the capabilities
in Windows XP for Word 2003.

============
Want to convert many handwritten pages into text in MS Word.>>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

For Everyday MS Office tips to "use right away" -
http://microsoft.com/events/series/administrativetipsandtricks.mspx

 

[ATD mapman]

Hello,

I just read the below

The ability to process 'ink' (handwritten notes) into
documents while it ships with Office comes from the capabilities
in Windows XP for Word 2003.

My testing of office 2003 seems to say that the ability to process "ink" is
only available if you are using a tablet PC. I have a wacom intuos tablet
with a desktop PC and would love to use the "ink" feature. Is there any way?

Thanks, Andy

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I don't know about the Intuos, but the ink feature works with my Wacom
Graphire pad, which is attached to a normal desktop PC. If you right-click
the language bar and choose Settings... in the Settings tab, there should be
a Handwriting Recognition section. If not, click Add and see if you can
enable/add it.

If you don't see the language bar, right-click Windows' taskbar and choose
Toolbars - Language bar (unless it's already checked).

 

[ATD mapman]

Thanks Herb,

You are correct about language recognition. The problem is this is really
only designed for handwriting recognition. It does not allow annotations that
sit directly on top of a document (like a professor does when reviewing a
paper). Ink, like works for tablet PCs (and incidentally does work for
PowerPoint during a presentation only) allows annotations directly onto the
document.

They should have allowed the "ink" capability for people with Wacoms.

Any other ideas?

Andy

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Mine actually appears to have an ink capability--you can insert handwritten
notes, and they aren't converted into text. When I choose Handwriting -
Write Anywhere. But, they seem to want to take the place of text, rather
than sitting in the drawing layer. There doesn't seem to be an option to
insert them in front of text, rather than in line with text. And, setting
Word to default (Tools - Options - Edit) to inserting grapics in front of
text doesn't affect the ink objects.

In my case, I can accomplish what you're talking about, however, by using my
Wacom pen to control Word's scribble tool (on the drawing toolbar, choose
Autoshape - Lines - Scribble). But, it's a very crude workaround, at best.

 

[ATD mapman]

Herb,

Thanks for your response and ideas. I have put a suggestion out there that
the ink capability (like it works in a PPT presentation and when you have a
tablet PC) be made to work whether you have a tablet PC or not. Being able to
make annotations is an important ability (at least for me) and to have to use
crude work arounds in as sophisticated a product as word is too bad.

Andy

 

[ATD mapman]

Maybe I should also ask, Does anyone know of software that will allow
annotations to easily be made on top of text in Word?

Thanks, Andy

 

[ATD mapman]

Dear Herb,

I've been thinking about this part of your response:

In my case, I can accomplish what you're talking about, however, by using my
Wacom pen to control Word's scribble tool (on the drawing toolbar, choose
Autoshape - Lines - Scribble). But, it's a very crude workaround, at best.

This would be an even better idea if the scribble tool would stay selected.
Then you could just keep writing (annotating) without having to select the
tool again. Do you know of a way to keep the tool selected?

Again, thanks for your help. My hope is they will implement ink in the
regular version of office. I read someplace else that ink objects are
different than draw objects so it certainly seems it could be done.

Andy

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

No, I can't think of a way to make the tool remain selected. All in all,
it's very awkward, and I wouldn't want to have to work like that for more
than a very short period--hence the phrase "very crude workaround, at best"
. Most annoying, for me anyway, is that if I were annotating something,
my pen would be down on the Wacom tablet, and the "something" would be on
the screen. I understand that there are people who have suffienct eye-hand
coordination to work that way, but I'm not one of them. If you have just a
little to do, it works. But, ergonomic, convenient or natural... it's not.

Here's a workaround... buy a tablet PC! ;-)

My handwriting is so bad that even the best tablet PCs have trouble
deciphering what I scrawl. The only way I'll ever have a tablet PC is if
it's the only computer available... and even then, I'd quickly find a way to
connect a keyboard to it.

Good luck!

 

[ATD mapman]

Dear Herb,

I just wanted to say thanks again for taking the time. At first I thought I
was crazy and at least now I understand how it really works.

Andy