Procedure for digitizing text

by Robert Hershoff

The procedure for digitizing text from a printed original utilizes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software in a two step process: first scan the appropriate text, then perform the OCR funtion.

OCR software available:

Calera Word Scan 3.1 (in the staff creativity lab)
Caere OmniPage LE 4.0 (in the LIST office)

The user interfaces are comparable, though Word Scan offers some additional image scanning features. Both software packages are distributed by Caere, which owns Calera.

How to scan and digitize text:

1. Set up the OCR software:

a. Scanner settings

• Image type binary
• Scan resolution 400 dpi

• Mark suspicious words
• Mark suspicious characters
• Save markers as ~
  (this feature allows you to use the "find" command in word processing to easily identify some, but not all, OCR errors)

and, for Word Scan only:

d. Template

• Text zone on
• Image zone off

2. Scan the text:

Place the first printed page on the scanner, then select "Start job" or "New job" from the file menu. At the "Load Scanner" pop-up box, select "scan." An image of the page will appear on the screen.

• Select the areas of text you want to convert
• Invoke the OCR command, from the button bar or the "file" menu and wait while your selection is scanned
• Choose "add pages" and continue until all desired text has been scanned

Order of scanning:

• Title or first header
• Text and headers, in logical (reading) order
  • use the text selection tools to add and delete sections of text and illustration from the scanned page, as necessary
• Scan footnotes last

3. Create the digital text file:

After scanning the last text passage, select "stop scanning" and save the finished version as a Microsoft Word 6.0 document. Once the printed text has been converted to digital format it can be verified and edited.

Return to the Scanning and Conversions Page