Marie, For paper you need a scanner. I have a Brother networked multifunction but I find them all pretty much the same unless you get a professional or A3. Autofeed helps and you also need a beefy PC to scan pictures in a reasonable time/quality. Most come with a basic OCR package. There was also a package that came with Microsoft Office at least up to 2003, otherwise you need something like IRIS pro which I use and find reasonable depending on the quality of the original. For Acrobat, there are two types of file, one is where Acrobat is aware of the individual letters and their position (like a word document) the other where it just sees a picture. You can tell the difference when you highlight words, the first will let you select characters, the second only a rectangular area. If it is an image you should print and scan. Nuance have packages that allow you to convert and create Acrobat files and there are shareware versions around. Plan B is voice recognition, for example Dragon Naturally Speaking which allows you to "read" to Word. Training the speech unit is hard work but after that looking at a single document and not have to concentrate on typing is worth it. Side effect is that you drive everybody else in the room crazy. Cheers Paul -----Original Message----- From: irl-co-donegal-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:irl-co-donegal-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Marie Van Laeys Sent: 29 June 2008 17:17 To: grantmc@yahoo.com; irl-co-donegal@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [IRL-CO-DONEGAL] digitization -- OCR Have you access to the Adobe Software in Ireland? Some of the more sophisticated upgrades may do that for you. Marie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant McLaughlin" <grantmc@yahoo.com> To: "IRL-CO-Donegal" <IRL-CO-DONEGAL-L@rootsweb.com>; "IRL-Donegal - List" <IRL-DONEGAL-L@rootsweb.com>; "IRL-Donegaleire-L" <DONEGALEIRE-L@rootsweb.com>; <irl-co-donegal@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 9:07 AM Subject: [IRL-CO-DONEGAL] digitization -- OCR Question for the group...... I have compiled quite a stack of paper and would like to digitize the files -- yet able to modifiy to data once it is digitized. I understand I need to use Optimization Character Resolution (OCR) software to do what I want to do... Does any have a recommendation of hardware and/or software that would enable me to do both photos/PDFs and articles? many thanks. --- On Sun, 6/29/08, hiflyte <hiflyte@telus.net> wrote: From: hiflyte <hiflyte@telus.net> Subject: [IRL-CO-DONEGAL] How the LDS Digitize the Films To: "IRL-CO-Donegal" <IRL-CO-DONEGAL-L@rootsweb.com>, "IRL-Donegal - List" <IRL-DONEGAL-L@rootsweb.com>, "IRL-Donegaleire-L" <DONEGALEIRE-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008, 9:38 AM Hi, Gen but information only on the Digitization Project at the LDS/FHC Church If not interest hit the delete key. I was browsing the web and came across this explanation of how the digitization project is handled in the deep dark vaults of Granite Mountain Vaults in the Salt Lake area. The actual Record Search site (pilot project ) is at: http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html?datestamp=118377 6820771#p=0 New or updated items have a red start adjacent to their name - hyperlink I am not a member of the LDS church just a big time user of their FHCs and CD they sell. Have a nice day Bob Cdn ------------------------------------------ Unlocking the Vault: Conversion to Digital Records is Progressing By Brittany Karford, Church Magazines Members may not have to wonder what lies behind the 14-ton vault door at the Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault (GMRV) facility for much longer. In as little as 10 years, much of its genealogical collection may be at their fingertips. The billions of names preserved on microfilmed records at the vault are being converted to digital images that can eventually be viewed online at FamilySearch.org and ultimately searched in and linked to an online index. The process of digitizing the microfilm is now faster than ever through a "bleeding edge" technology system called FamilySearch^(TM) Scanning. "I call it unlocking the vault," says Heath Nielson, the program's lead software engineer. "I cannot wait for the day when accessibility to these records becomes available to all." When that day comes, the records will be available to everyone, both Latter-day Saints and the public---"God's children everywhere"---according to the project team. And for those researching family history under either title, it will mean no more microfilm, and no more eyes strained from looking at film under dim light. The vision, says Brent Thompson, director of records preservation, is that in the future members in Lima, Peru, who now wait up to six or eight weeks for microfilm, will be able to go to a family history center or anywhere with Internet access and look at records with the click of a button. It is a giant first step toward putting most of the family history collection of the GMRV online. Online images and indexes of birth, marriage, and death records from all over the world may altogether change how family history work is done. Currently, only a minority of members pursue family history work, but the accessibility enabled through FamilySearch Scanning will make it simple for anyone with Internet access to get involved. Brother Thompson believes they will, though at first he didn't dream digitizing the collection would be possible. "I couldn't imagine it possible in my lifetime," he says. "I couldn't imagine it possible in /my children's/ lifetime." At the rate they were going prior to the FamilySearch Scanning technology, it was estimated that it would take 120 years to convert applicable films to digital. That same projection is now less than 30 years, perhaps sooner with planned expansions of additional scanners. The team that couldn't fathom living to see the end result will now be the team that will someday complete the digitizing process. So how does it work? One vault worker loads rolls of film into a pod of scanners and presses "Go". The scanner then takes one comprehensive video picture and transfers that continuous file to another computer, where an application analyzes the contrast of the ribbon for quality and splits each frame into individual JPEGs (a digital file of an image). To finish, a good pair of eyes reviews the job and processes the newly created JPEGs. The digital images are then readied for use by the Church's online indexing program, where volunteers over time will help extract the birth, marriage, and death information from the images to create free searchable indexes online (like the 1880 U.S., 1880 Canada, and 1881 British Censuses currently found at FamilySearch.org). This is a great improvement over the process used just a little more than a year ago, where one person had to be present throughout the entire process, manually scrutinizing each frame. Through three to four feet of film, one technician would adjust the light and contrast with the film density changes, watching every image come across the screen and cutting it out. "We thought, 'How can we apply computer technology to save these poor people's eyes?' " explains Derek Dobson, product manager. "And how can we more quickly convert these microfilms to digital images so people can access them more readily on the Internet?" Enter Heath Nielson and a team of engineers. Not only does the computer system they developed speed the process up, but by taking the frames on a continuous file, it retains the contextual information of each slide as a piece of a whole. "In the computer, it's not piecemeal. You can look at a single frame next to its neighbors, and it tells you something about it," Brother Nielson says. Also, with the manual process there was no way of knowing if they had missed an image, something that is not a factor with the continuous file. Though the technology is not entirely novel, their ability to act and the Church's ability to execute and implement the technology for its intended purposes makes them pioneers in the field. Yet setting the program into motion has not been without its glitches. "It's something I still feel fervently about," Brother Nielson says. "I knew that if this was something we needed to do, there would be a way provided." And there was. In the hard and frustrating times, he said they would find just what mechanism they needed and receive help from specific individuals just when they needed it---one step at a time. On just four scanners, they have tripled output---yet they've still only completed four percent of the targeted films at the vault, and more films are coming in. This year alone, they expect to acquire an additional 28,000, says Wayne Crosby, general manager of GMVR. They have a lot of work to do. The good news is they are two to three years away from completing the transition from microfilm cameras to digital cameras. When this transition is complete, only the existing microfilm collection will need to be converted to digital. Film and microfiche will continue to be stored in the vault, even after their digital conversion. "The polyester film lasts 300 to 500 years and will continue to be used for long-term preservation," Brother Crosby explains, noting that the digitizing of the records is to make them more accessible to family history researchers, not to make preservation easier. And so it's back into the long, chilly corridors deep within Granite Mountain for not only the polyester films, but the new digital records as well. There they will reside in one of six 190-foot long rooms. About 1 million rolls of film are held in each vault, maintained at a constant 55 degrees and 30 percent humidity, ideal for preservation. From the doorway, the row after row of monstrous file cabinets creates the impression of having fallen into /Alice and Wonderland/ and stepped into a strange office where filing cabinets stretch from floor to ceiling. But the vault where the digital images are stored is for the most part empty (One DVD can hold up to 4 digitized microfilms). A few short cabinets hold what's been converted so far, and the expansiveness of the room whispers of a future when it will be filled. When that day comes, most members will be able to access the digital images of the films anywhere they have Internet access---from their homes or local Family History Center---through the Church's genealogical Web site, http://www.familysearch.org; and the staff at GMVR won't be bundling in their coats as often to retrieve fiche and film. "Think how easy that will be," says Paul Nauta, public relations manager for the Family and Church History Department. "In the future individuals anywhere in the world through the Internet will be able to search the majority of the GMRV's film collection and the billions of names currently hidden in them---all from the convenience of their homes or family history center." "Won't it be nice if in between naps and playing with my children, I can jump on the Internet and do family history research," says Brother Nielson. "This technology is the answer to our hopes, our dreams, and our prayers," Brother Thompson adds. He smiles, looking out one of the main office windows---or rather, a giant half-dome portal that opens the granite slab to the north-facing alpine slope across the canyon. About to step out of the paper-and-film world that has shaped his profession, he reflects on the mountainside. "What a view," he says, "and what a great resource this is for the Church. What an inspiration it was to build this facility in a solid wall of granite." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-CO-DONEGAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-CO-DONEGAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-CO-DONEGAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message