[X Newbies] OCR Software

[Randy B. Singer]

Chris Walker said:

>>Trapeze converts pdf files to text files. Could you convert
>>your tiff scan to a pdf and use Trapeze?
>Thanks for that - I'd never heard of Trapeze.  It's certainly worth a try.


Trapeze is not an OCR program.  It merely strips the text out of a PDF 
and adds some minor formatting.

If you convert a TIFF (which is a graphic file format) into a PDF, even 
if the original scan included text, the resulting PDF will only contain a 
graphic image of that text.  There will be no text for a program like 
Trapeze to strip out.

There are currently only three major OCR programs for the Macintosh 
(there are some "throwaway" OCR programs included with scanners, but 
their performance is disappointing):

OmniPage Pro X
http://www.scansoft.com/omnipage/mac/

ReadIris
http://www.irisusa.com/products/readiris/mac/index.html

ABBYY FineReader Pro (Classic Environment only)
http://www.abbyyusa.com
http://www.abbyy.com/ocr_products.asp?param=1617

(You may remember Xerox's TextBridge.  That product was purchased by 
Scansoft, and the Macintosh version has been discontinued.)

Of these three, OmniPage Pro X is the best, but it is also by far the 
most expensive (close to $500) and it is sometimes hard for folks to 
install (the work-around is to either install it while booted in OS 9, if 
your Mac can boot into OS 9, or to install it while logged in as Root.)

However, there is an "upgrade" version of OmniPage Pro X, and to purchase 
it you only need to have any sort of OCR software, even the garbage that 
comes with a new scanner, or a very old OCR program.  (I'm not sure that 
they even check that you have such a program to upgrade from.):

$130 upgrade version
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=366607



Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html