[ubuntu-uk] Scanners & OCR

[Grant Sewell]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:51:02 +0100
Simon Wears wrote:

> On 18 August 2010 19:02, Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > On 18/08/10 18:25, Simon Wears wrote:
> > > Heyhey everybody!
> > >
> > > I'm looking at investing in a scanner so I can digitise my
> > > university notes this coming academic year. I was wondering if
> > > anyone has a scanner they can recommend that works well with
> > > Ubuntu? Ideally it would be a tray-fed scanner, so I can put in
> > > several sheets at a time and just hit a nice big 'GO' button, and
> > > it would scan it all into a single PDF. Bonus points if it can
> > > scan both sides of the paper in one go.
> > >
> > > Also, has anyone tried any available OCR software for Ubuntu?
> > > It'd be great if I could scan in my notes into text, which would
> > > make them all searchable!
> > >
> > > Simon Wears
> > > http://MunkyJunky.comb
> > >
> >
> > Hmm, it's been a while since I looked into scanners, guess it
> > depends how much you want to spend.  IIRC some of the higher end HP
> > ScanJet scanners have ADF feeder options although the scanners I've
> > seen in the shops tend to be basic flat bed models.
> >
> > Guess it depends on your budget, but maybe you could look at a
> > combined scanner/copier/printer with ADF unit (they seem to be more
> > readily available).  One such printer I tried recently was a
> > Lexmark (X264) which was networked and scanned to e-mail, so
> > basically you could scan anything and it would convert it to a PDF
> > (it supported colour and black and white) and would e-mail it out.
> >
> > As far as OCR software goes, I've never tried any on Linux, last
> > time I tried OCR software was on Windows and I'm not sure if it's
> > improved or not, it certainly wasn't good enough to read
> > handwriting.  You say your notes are in text, will they be
> > handwritten notes or typed up?
> >
> > Rob
> The idea would be to scan in my handwritten notes, but that would also
> involve mathematical graphs & symbols, which it may not cope with
> well. The OCR isn't as important, it would just be a nice feature. As
> long as I can make a digital copy of my notes easily it would do!
> 
> Simon Wears
> http://MunkyJunky.com

I have found that a large number of USB scanners "just work".  The
biggest issue I have found when trying to scan in what is essentially
B/W "line-art" is getting the contrast/brightness settings right so the
scanned version is legible.

Grant.