What is the best program to use to edit scanned documents?

[Cash]

I need to scan a large document and then edit it. What program will work the
best for the editing?

 

[John Inzer]

You need OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
software. Are you running Office 2003? Try using...
Microsoft Office Document Imaging...have a look
at the following link:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP010771031033.aspx

 

[Ed Bennett]

You need OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
software. Are you running Office 2003? Try using...
Microsoft Office Document Imaging...have a look
at the following link:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP010771031033.aspx

That doesn't really allow for editing, unless the document is primarily
text.
A lot of reformatting is necessary, even then.

Scanning and editing is a long way from prime time.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Ed,

I use Abbyy Fine Reader and it does a great job. Scanned and edited
eight pages of typed text in about 30 minutes.

Mike

 

[Ed Bennett]

I use Abbyy Fine Reader and it does a great job. Scanned and edited
eight pages of typed text in about 30 minutes.

OCR isn't something I do often (once in the past 6 years), so it doesn't
really justify purchasing a program especially for it.

I'll keep that program in mind for the future, though.

Out of interest, did the text have complex layout or was it straight text?

 

[John Inzer]

That doesn't really allow for editing, unless
the document is primarily text.

=================================
Okay...what program do you recommend?

 

[Ed Bennett]

Okay...what program do you recommend?

Mike seems to suggest that Abbyy Fine Reader does a good job.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Ed,

I've done text in columns as well as plain text on a page. For a test, I
took a page from the paper. Part of it has headlines that spanned three
columns, the rest was in three-column text frames.

It did a decent job - not perfect but much faster than I would have
taken to type it. Keep in mind that I am scanning newsprint; which I
scanned articles printed on plain paper at 12 point type, it is nearly
perfect.

The Lovely Natasha offered me Version 5 for $9.95. I couldn't pass it up!

Mike

 

[drc023]

A couple of freebie OCR's you may want to check out are SimpleOCR - good
editing, but only fair to good on recognition and TOCR - fair to good on
editing, but great on recognition. I want to find out how Mike got Abby
FineReader from Serif. What a deal.

 

[drc023]

How long ago was this? I want it, NOW!!! I'm working on a large OCR project
at the moment and having a better OCR program would be wonderful. Up to now
my favorite has been Textbridge Pro which isn't supposed to work on XP. I
finally got it to work, but the product is old and not up to current
standards.

Can you please supply some information about how you were able to get Abbyy
Fine Reader so cheap? I really need that product. I get offers from Serif
all the time, but don't recall seeing this one.