Character Recognition Software

July 20, 2005 7:45 AM

Can anyone recommend free (or dirt cheap) character recognition software for OSX?

I've been asked to help in the preparation of a second edition of a book published B.W.P. (before Word Processors). Step one is creating revisable copy of the original text. I'd prefer (for obvious reasons) not to have to type it out manually. I'd also prefer not to have to spend money.

posted by felix betachat to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: I've used the commercial OmniPage in the past, which works great. But DigitEyeOCR may be what you're looking for. I haven't tried it - if you do, let me know if it's any good. I have a policy manual that I've offered to OCR over the summer...
posted by hamfisted at 8:56 AM on July 20, 2005

I don't think there are any free software options. There's OmniPage Pro but it is often cheaper to buy a scanner that comes bundled with OmniPage Pro than to buy it standalone.
posted by Rothko at 8:57 AM on July 20, 2005

Wow, I take it back.
posted by Rothko at 8:58 AM on July 20, 2005

DjVuZone have (or had) a free online tool Any2DjVu that would convert any input file to their djvu format. In doing so, it runs the page images through what I think is the OmniPage engine. You can extract the (fairly clean) text from the djvu result file.

Ever since ScanSoft bought up nearly all of the competition, good cheap OCR is hard to find. None of the free ones I've tried (GOCR, ClaraOCR) were worth much.
posted by scruss at 10:03 AM on July 20, 2005