OCR Software

Latte Other Software & Development
1

I’m back to Scrivener (having kept up my license since the beginning). I’ve shifted my workflow so I write on a typewriter, edit, retype, then scan and OCR. Curious what others who write their early drafts analog do to digitize, especially if they OCR.

I tried quite a few. Some stumble on character accuracy, most on formatting lines vs. paragraphs. Abbyy FineReader PDF is what I’ve settled on so far, and it is very accurate.

2

Wow. :sunglasses:

I’d be curious (hope I am not too much out of line) as to what is/are the advantage(s).

You know they make computer keyboards that replicate a typewriter noise and touch ?

3

Och, well, great question, Vincent. Lest it become a rabbit hole in this thread, I answer your question here: Why I write Early Drafts with a Manual Typewriter

1 Like
4

AFR is very good. I’ve used it for years as part of using DevonThink.

I also recommend the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners.

1 Like
5

Username checks out. :wink:

6

Technically displaced by an ocean and half a continent and a few generations, but, aye. Grin. The Rocky Mountain highlands.

7

Good point on scanner mentions, @popcornflix. Mine is an HP ScanJet Pro 2000 s2. I type duplex as the paper I prefer is the rougher, and thus costlier, kind. The OCR that comes with it leaves a lot to be desired. Other OCR software I tried and rejected includes:

  • Adobe Acrobat (costly, bulky, feature bloat harms usability, frequent OCR errors, and formatting errors that might be fixed by options if I could find them but I couldn’t).
  • Textify: great character recognition (even better than Abbyy), but no formatting options)
  • OCRkit: poor character and formatting accuracy.
  • Prizmo: decent character accuracy, no formatting options
  • Cisdem PDF Converter: decent character accuracy, no formatting options
  • ReadIRIS 17: decent character accuracy, no formatting options