Optical Character Recognition

[a chesters]

Does anyone know of a quality free optical character recognition programme. I had one on the old, Vista, computer, but have changed to a windows 10 machine.

Which one it was on the old machine I have no idea, and I must have downloaded it, as I do not have a CD for it.

Any assistance would be very gratefully received. I have looked on the internet, but am not sure just how genuine the "reviews" might be.

A Chesters

[Guy Etchells]

Really it depends what you want the software to OCR but on the whole I would probably suggest trying SimpleOCR or FreeOCR.

There are also a plethora of online OCR engines where the processing happens online, but of course there are/may be obvious security implications uploading personal information to these.
Cheers
Guy

[a chesters]

Thanks for the prompt reply Guy.

I simply want to be able to transfer certain written records from paper to the computer, to go with other records, so that I can have all the information regarding a certain subject in the one place.

Are the two you suggest downloaded  onto the PC so that they are not on line?

Again, many thanks for the information.

AC

[Guy Etchells]

Thanks for the prompt reply Guy.

I simply want to be able to transfer certain written records from paper to the computer, to go with other records, so that I can have all the information regarding a certain subject in the one place.

Are the two you suggest downloaded  onto the PC so that they are not on line?

Again, many thanks for the information.

AC

Yes
Cheers
Guy

[Michael J]

If you have an earlier version of MS Office it includes ocr in Office Tools, ref G - - - search below:

Dating back to Windows 2003 and earlier, Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) which is the same as OCR was a feature installed by default. It was able to convert the text in scanned image to a Word document. However, it was removed in Office 2010 and it is yet to be brought back.

[HarryW]

Don't you have an OCR bundled with your scanner software?.   All the scanners I have used over the years did.

[HughC]

An expensive Hewlett-Packard scanner (now defunct) came with OCR,
but the Canon 'Pixma' printer-and-scanner-in-one doesn't, as far as I can see.

[arthurk]

but the Canon 'Pixma' printer-and-scanner-in-one doesn't, as far as I can see.

That might depend on the model - I don't think my previous Pixma had it, but according to the manual my current one (TS5150) does.

Some other programs have OCR capability. I've used it occasionally in PDF-XChange Editor, which I think takes it from a pdf file; I also discovered it in MS OneNote, though I don't actually use that - I seem to remember that needed a jpg file to work from.

[HarryW]

My Canon TS5050 has got OCR as part of a bundle of software.

Without the printer in front of me, I think it is part of My Image Garden.