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| Scanning Print Materials into your Computer |
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| You need to use a scanner,and OCR software to convert print text to digital text on your computer to read with a text-to-speech (TTS) program, TxtReaderXpress. |
| When you purchase a scanner it also comes with scanning software and OCR software. |
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SimpleOCR is the popular freeware OCR software.
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| The Scanning Process |
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| Step 1 |
| Lay the document page on the scanner glass, or for sheet fed scanners, insert the sheet into the scanner. If you are scanning several pages you want to save as one document file, you may be able to indicate to the scanning software that the print material is multiple pages. |
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| Step 2 |
| Click the scan button or choose the menu item instructing the scanner to scan the page. First, the scanner will create and display a preview version of the page. Look at the preview page and evaluate how readable or clear it is. Print materials that have a colored background or contain text in colors other than black may not initially scan well. |
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| Step 3 |
| Evaluate the preview scan. If the preview is poor, then you will need to adjust the resolution and/or the brightness level. Adjusting the brightness can help compensate for a colored background or colored text. Refer to the user guide describing the scanning and OCR functions and look for information about improving the image, adjusting resolution, and adjusting brightness. In addition to improving the image, some software allows you to select a specific area that you want to scan in the final scan so that only that area is scanned. Make this selection if necessary. |
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| Step 4 |
| Prepare the text page for the final scan and OCR conversion. Refer to the instructions below that pertain to the type of page you are scanning. |
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| Text only page |
| The software may allow you to indicate that you are scanning text and that the OCR software should “interpret” or “recognize” the text in the final scan. You may have to do the final scan and then run the OCR software as a separate step. For more specific instructions about the OCR function, refer to your user guide and look for information about OCR, text files, interpreting text, and recognizing text. |
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| Text page with columns |
| Some scanning and OCR software lets you indicate in a setting that the text has multiple columns. Choosing this setting helps the OCR software interpret the text correctly. |
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| Text page with picture |
| Some software lets you draw graphic boxes around the pictures to indicate they are picture areas and text boxes around the text areas to indicate that those need to be interpreted by the OCR software. You may also be able to number the text and picture areas so that in the final document they appear in the order you select. Some software calls these areas of the page “zones” and looking for that information in your user guide will give you more specific instructions about this step. |
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| Step 5 |
| Instruct the software to make the final scan after making any adjustments in Step 3 and Step 4. If the OCR software also interpreted the text and converted it to true text, you are ready to move to Step 6. Otherwise, you need to instruct the software to run the OCR. Refer to your software user guide for more specific instructions. Look in the index or table of contents for phrases such as interpret text, recognize text, optical character recognition (OCR), and text document. If the quality of the final scan is still not optimal refer to Steps 3 and 4 again for improving the image and then re-try making the final scan. |
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| Step 6 |
| Save your text file in a format appropriate to your TTS program. RTF allows you formatting options and you may want to choose this format for that reason. If you are using scanning and OCR software that is part of your TTS program, then refer to the user guide for that program to see what format the guide recommends. It may be that a format proprietary to that software works best. See Strategies for Formatting and Saving Scanned Text Files for tips about storing and backing up these files after you have created them. |
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| How to Turn a Scanned Document Into Microsoft Word Document |
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- Scan the page you want to convert into a Microsoft Word document.
- Save the scanned image in *.gif, *.jpeg or whatever format.
- Open that image, go to "File->Save As" and name it "xyz.tiff" in the "TIFF" format as shown.
- Go to "Start->Programs->Microsoft Office Tools->Microsoft Office Document Imaging"
- Go to "File->Open" and open your scanned document that has been saved in *.TIFF format.
- Go to "Tools->Send Text to Word." You will get a prompt stating this process will take time, Click OK. This will take some time depending on your computer's speed .
- When it's done it will open up Microsoft word on its own and the scanned document will now be in editable mode.
- Save the document in *.rtf, *.xps format.
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