Office Tools, OCR, where is it?

C

CGB

I am running XP SP2, MS Office Student and Teacher Edition SP1 (it came on
my computer with a 60 day trial and I then paid for it. I didn't do any
installation of the product, it was just there and legitimized after my
payment. They sent me CD's after my paying but I've not needed to use them)

I want to do some OCR using my scanner. I also read that MS Office 2003
does this very well. I read on MS that I can do this with my MS Office
2003. It says:

1. Open a file in Office Document Imaging
2. On the Windows Start menu, point to All Programs (Programs in Microsoft
Windows 2000), point to Microsoft Office, point to Microsoft Office
Tools, and then click Microsoft Office Document Imaging.
3. In Document Imaging, click Open on the File menu.
4. Locate the file you want to open, and then click Open

Trouble is, when I go to step two above, after clicking on "Microsoft
Office" I don't find any choice for "Microsoft Office Tools" on my computer.
Where is it? Browsing my folders I don't see any program that looks like it
would start the "Office Tools" portion. It's a shame that I bought this
program and am missing out on what might be a good portion of the product!

Any help would be appreciated.

Chet
 
D

Don MI

CGB said:
I am running XP SP2, MS Office Student and Teacher Edition SP1 (it came on
my computer with a 60 day trial and I then paid for it. I didn't do any
installation of the product, it was just there and legitimized after my
payment. They sent me CD's after my paying but I've not needed to use
them)

I want to do some OCR using my scanner. I also read that MS Office 2003
does this very well. I read on MS that I can do this with my MS Office
2003. It says:

1. Open a file in Office Document Imaging
2. On the Windows Start menu, point to All Programs (Programs in
Microsoft Windows 2000), point to Microsoft Office, point to Microsoft
Office Tools, and then click Microsoft Office Document Imaging.
3. In Document Imaging, click Open on the File menu.
4. Locate the file you want to open, and then click Open

Trouble is, when I go to step two above, after clicking on "Microsoft
Office" I don't find any choice for "Microsoft Office Tools" on my
computer. Where is it? Browsing my folders I don't see any program that
looks like it would start the "Office Tools" portion. It's a shame that I
bought this program and am missing out on what might be a good portion of
the product!

Any help would be appreciated.

Chet
Click to expand...

You may need just need to install Office Tools. Get the Office CD you
received and then go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.
Find and select your Microsoft Office on the list and click on Change. On
the next screen select Add or Remove Features. On the next screen check the
customization box {bottom}. Next you will get a list of Office folders. Find
Office Tools on the list.

Click on the + to expand the Office Tools list. You can now install those
you want. Click on the down arrow head for each tool. Microsoft speak here
is:
Run on My Computer means install.
Not Available means the tool is not installed.
Install on first use means install the first time you try to use the
feature.
In you choose, you can click on the down arrowhead next to Office Tools and
install all the tools. However, you will likely not need all of them. If
you do choose to install all of the tools and later decide that you do not
need the tool, just come back to this installation page, select the tool you
do not want and choose Not Available. The tool will be uninstalled.

Don
 
C

CGB

Don,
Thanks, sounds reasonable and hopefully no problem.
I assume that if the program already exists on my machine but I just can't
find it, "installing" it from the disk over top of what might be there, will
do no harm. Right?

Thanks.
Chet
 
D

Don MI

Chet.
When you get the Office 2003 installation list, if the Office Tool that
you are interested in using is already marked: Run on my computer then it is
installed. While re-installing a tool on top of a current installation will
not harm, the Office installation program will not let you re-install a
component that is already installed without first un-installing by selecting
Not Available.

If you find that the Office Tools you want are already installed {marked
as Run on My Computer}, than cancel the modification operation and go back
to Add/Remove Programs and click on Change again. This time instead of
selecting Add or Remove Features select the Repair option. Repair will
restore the original installation including any deleted shortcuts.

Which Office Tools are useful varies with individual users. From your
problem description, my guess was that your OEM did not know which tools you
would find useful so left the installation up to you. I suspect that you
will find the Tools marked as Not Available meaning not installed. But, I
could be wrong.

Don
 
C

CGB

Don,
I can't thank you enough. I'm up and running accessing my Office Tools and
doing OCR! I've been wanting to do this for over a year and didn't know the
program was on my machine! You were on the money. Slight things I noted:

1. I had this suspicion that MS Digital imaging was on my machine because
my fax module works and when I look at a fax it does it by using MS Digital
Imaging. However, I couldn't find it on the All Programs route, etc.

2. I followed your advice via control panel and changing MS Office. The
icon on the MS Office Tools looked like (based on the key they gave) gave me
choices of "run from my computer," "run all from my computer," "installed
on first use," and "X delete" The icons showed some marked with a "1" which
translated to installed on first use and all the others looked like they
were keyed to "run from my computer" i.e. what you said really meant
install. Rather that going back to the previous screen and "repairing" I
decided just to go for it! I highlighted the major directory for Office
Tools, selected run from my computer. It asked for my Office CD, I inserted
it and in a very few seconds, it said the change was done.

3. An option for Tools and MS Document and Scanning appeared on my
Start>All programs, etc. I followed directions and all worked.

4. I'm pretty sure I opted to have all the components of the Tool directory
"run from my computer" i.e. installed all tools, but only addition I see in
the Start> all programs> etc. is the addition of the imaging and scanning
as sub-choices for Office Tools. If the other tools installed are they
something that are used by other programs, but not singly selectable as is
imaging and scanning? I.e. I expected to see more that 2 choices when
selecting Office Tools.

Got a big boost with your advice.

Thanks again.

Chet
 
D

Don MI

Chet:
I have nine entries under Office Tools but that is a result of my
choices. One that I would expect you to have is Microsoft Office Picture
Manager. Now that you know the code, you can go back to the installation
list and check for each tool. However, before you do that, I suggest that
you do a repair. Repair will ensure that your Office installation matches
the installed configuration selections. Just open any Office Application
and go to Help. Then select Detect and Repair.

Don
 
C

CGB

Don,

You're on the mark. I ran the Detect and Repair from Word and it went
smoothly, didn't ask for my source CD and when done gave me 8 options under
Tools, including MS Office Picture Manager. I now have a total of 8 options
under tools. You have 9. It's appropriate that you, the guru, have one
more than I do!

Fooling around with the program, following your guidance, went very easily
with no crashes. Now, I think I will get around to installing SP2 for
Office, something I've been avoiding for some time. If you are running SP2,
perhaps that's why you might have one more tool than I.

Chet
 
D

Don MI

Glad you have everything up. IMO, you should install SP2. If you have any
problem with the installation, you may want to check/post to
microsoft.public.officeupdate. SP2 is a large download. If you have a slow
connection, Microsoft offers a free CD in North America at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010383631033.aspx . Despite the deliver
time quoted by Microsoft, the CD usually arrives in a week.

As to the different number of tools, I have a different installation than
you including additional Office family applications. As I recall, OneNote
2003 added a tool.

Don
 
C

CGB

Don,
Your excellent advice led me to finally doing the Office SP2 update. I'm on
cable so I downloaded the 40 meg file in slightly less than 3 min (I
remember being lucky to get a dialup connection at 48K !!!!). I re-ran the
"detect and repair" just before running the update (had read this was a good
idea). Installed in less than 3 minutes, needed my original office CD,
didn't even need a restart. I was surprised. I would have thought that a
40 meg file would alter the program enough that it would take a lot longer
than 3 minutes! Anyhow, it's all set with no problems.

Thanks.

Chet
FYI, I'm in Massachusetts
 
D

Don MI

Great. BTW, that 40 Mb file contained changes to Office applications that
you do not have {such as Access}. Only updates to the applications included
in your Student and Teacher edition were installed. BTW2, if you look around
{likely on another drive if you have more than one} you will find a hidden
folder MSOCache. MSOCache contains the setup files for your Office
installation so you will usually not need the Office CD to install updates.

Don
 
C

CGB

Don, I'm running Office 2003, student and teachers. However I added in
Access 97 from my old CD from an older computer on which I ran Office 97
Professional. One of the reasons I didn't want to update to SP2 on the new
machine and newer Office program was that I was afraid it might mess up
Access 97 in the process. It ran well and the update to SP2 didn't ruin
anything, other than it changed the default storage area for my Access 97
mdb files. I reset it.

I suspect MSOCache is on my computer. It's an HP that came with one hard
drive, partitioned into C and D. The "recovery" files are on the D portion,
guess this is the XP operating system. I assume that the trial version of
Office that came supplied must be on it too. I can't find MSOCache*.* on C
and the search function doesn't find it on D or isn't even allowed to search
D. Using Explorer to find a directory listing of D simply results in a
screen saying, essentially, "keep out." This true despite my having options
set to display hidden files, system files, etc. At any rate, because I paid
for the trial version of Office, they sent me a CD and I'm good to go.
Perhaps they didn't include the ability, ie. MSOCache, for adding things in
the trial version, until I bought the program and got the CD.

Chet
 
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