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Subject:Re: TIF conversion From:"Arlen P. Walker" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM> Date:Sat, 24 Jun 1995 09:34:00 -0600
I am currently preparing an HTML catalog for a client with a mail-
order business. Some of the material in this catalog is derived from
FAXed documents sent by the wholesaler. Do any of you know of any way I
can convert these FAX TIF files to a form in which they can be imported
into a word processing document for editing? I have tried everything I
can think of and now I am turning to wiser heads for help.
I'm assuming the TIF files contain text. So the category of software you're
looking for is OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
Since the resolution for standarda fax transmission is poor to begin with, many
OCR packages have trouble with them. If you are condemned to work with second or
third generation copies of these, the difficulty is multiplied.
You don't mention the platform you're using, but I dceduce from the "TIF" rather
than "TIFF" that it's prably DOS/Windows. We use Macs for that kind of thing
around here, and the best package we've found for dealing with low-res things
like faxes is WordScan from Calera. I think they have a Windows version as well.
Resign yourself to lots of cleanup after the OCR pass. I've never seen a Fax
pass through OCR software with 100% character comprehension. depending upon the
quality of the print on the page you're working from, rates as low as 50% can
occur. Rates in the 90-95% range are not uncommon for good, crisp printing.
Anything above 97% is superb. If the amount of Fax'ed copy is relatively low, it
may be faster to simply retype it (that depends on both amount and typing
speed).
Have fun,
Arlen
arlen -dot- p -dot- walker -at- jci -dot- com
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