[Athen] Scan to Readable PDF Question

[Karlen Communications]

I have a CanoScan Lide which is about 8 years old and still functioning but
I found the OCR software a bit lacking as it is a lite version. ABBYY makes
PDF Transform which lets you open a PDF in the application, perform the OCR
and then send it to Word. I've found it a good alternative to higher priced
solutions. The UI itself is not accessible but they do have keyboard
commands to perform the functions. The cost is $78 USD I believe.

So it is a possible solution to be added to the list.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Sean J
Keegan
Sent: September-21-12 6:12 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] Scan to Readable PDF Question

 > He has asked me about scanners that scan text directly into  > readable
PDFs. Does anybody know if this exists? Does Zoom  > Text have OCR built
into its code?

Have you looked at any of the Canon Canoscan LiDE scanners? Based on the
documentation, I believe you can "scan to PDF" which will do some OCR during
the processing (the OCR happens on the user's computer).  See:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-LiDE210-Scanner-4508B002/dp/B003VQR1TS

Brother also makes a desktop model that offers OCR functionality:
http://www.brother-usa.com/Scanners/ModelDetail.aspx?ProductID=ADS2000#.UFzf
dxiz7x4

That being said, most people I encounter prefer to purchase a scanner and
then purchase a separate OCR program to support the conversion process.  In
part, the OCR application that comes bundled with scanners is a bit limited
and may not offer the best recognition capabilities.

Adobe Acrobat Professional does have some OCR functionality built into the
application.  That may be an option as well, although I have sometimes had
issues with the recognition accuracy depending on the PDF.

Does your friend have access to the Internet?  If so, one option may be to
obtain a scanner and then submit documents to an online OCR system to obtain
a text-based PDF.  One service is called Sensus Access
(http://sensusaccess.com) and the results are returned to your e-mail inbox
(I know the OCR engine is the Abbyy Recognition Server - very high quality).

At this time, the desktop ZoomText application does not have a built in OCR
engine for PDF documents.

Take care,
Sean

--
Sean Keegan
Associate Director, Assistive Technology Office of Accessible Education -
Stanford University http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae

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