One thing you might want to try -- some of the problem you are encountering is the "show-through" of the text printed on the reverse side of the newspaper. Try placing a black piece of paper on the back of the newspaper, scan it, OCR it, and see what happens. I can see why scanned pictures may be bad -- the moire effect -- but a straight text document may be easier scanned with the blcak backing. Aloha Wayne, NH6K -----Original Message----- From: Young Snodgrass [mailto:young.snodgrass@verizon.net] Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 3:06 PM To: SENIOR-NEWBIE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SR-NEWBIE] Optical Character Recognition Software Hello Barry and List: Thank-you for your suggestions and advice! Now that you mention it, I've heard of "special" scanners for books, but I'd never seen one. I looked at the "Book-Eye" scanner, and it is easy to understand the physics needed for books, etc. I am certain one of my issues is that the newspaper / type images are not "flat." I can see that the scanned pages are "distorted." (Not too distorted, but probably tough on an OCR program.) However, another issue is that the program I was trying to use is just a little too touchy. On someone else's suggestion, I tried the OCR program included in MS Office 2003. And candidly, it did a better job than a fairly expensive OCR program that was very highly rated by "reviewers." I can see that I need to be more careful of my scans! I have a Canoscan unit I take with me into the field. It fits very nicely into my computer bag. I bought it because I find folks will allow me to scan or copy items that they will not allow me to take and return. Thank-you for your thoughts on this matter! Cordially yours, Young Snodgrass, KC9OE Elkhart, Indiana young.snodgrass@verizon.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barry" <barry@yobunny.co.uk> To: <SENIOR-NEWBIE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 1:57 PM Subject: Re: [SR-NEWBIE] Optical Character Recognition Software > Hello Young, > > Friday, August 19, 2005, 3:28:24 PM, you wrote: > > YS> I am looking for an OCR program for transcribing old newspaper > YS> articles to searchable text. To date I've had marginal success in > YS> this area, and I was hoping someone here could lead me to success. > > The equipment needed to be successful at this sort of OCR job is very > specialised and very expensive ... do a Google search for 'Book Eye > Scanner' and you'll see what I mean <lol> > > There are professional OCR packages that can use your own scanner and > PC, but again - to get good results means paying quite a lot. I use > Abbyy Fine Reader Pro version 5 ( free install from a magazine CD - > current one is version 7 ) which scans and reads printed text very > well providing it's not too grubby. You should be able to get a trial > download to see if it will do what you want. > > HTH > > -- > Best regards, > Barry mailto:barry@yobunny.co.uk > MicroSoft Free Zone running Xandros 2.0 Deluxe > ==== SENIOR-NEWBIE Mailing List ==== Keep informed of the latest news and new databases, webpages and mailing lists at RootsWeb. Subscribe to the weekly RootsWeb Review. To subscribe, start here: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ ============================== Search Family and Local Histories for stories about your family and the areas they lived. Over 85 million names added in the last 12 months. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13966/rd.ashx