OCR software needed

[acr1965]

I am in need of some OCR software so I can scan some documents and save as templates for later use. Can anyone recommend a good OCR software that's either free or decently priced? My scanner is a Cannon MX340.

thanks

[Cudni]

check Nuance ocr software or I.R.I.S to name some.

[Robin A.]

Try http://www.onlineocr.net/.
Otherwise, FineReader is very good.

[Boyfriend]

The best product I have used for OCR is ABBYY FineReader Professional (10.0.102.109). I worked perfectly and recognized pdf accurately even badly scanned ones. Moreover, there is an option to retain layout perfectly. Other products I have used are Nitro PDF Pro (6.0.2.6) and PDF OCR (4.0).

[acr1965]

thanks for the info- will check these out

[LenC]

I have an HP All-in-one that came with software that works pretty well. Can't you get something from Canon (for free)?

[pajenn]

Another vote for ABBYY FineReader Pro 10, but it's expensive.

In terms of free alternatives, a year ago I had good results with Softi FreeOCR (http://www.brothersoft.com/freeocr-59672.html) (setup file name = freeocr26.exe, not sure if the link works anymore). It uses the free tesseract OCR engine. I also don't know if that project is still alive, but it's worth checking out before you buy an expensive commercial alternative.

I was testing it with someone's free autohotkey script for grabbing screen content and converting it to text (similar to ABBYY's screenshot reader), to which end I also downloaded other bits and pieces of free graphics software (e.g. ImageMagick portable and potrace). The whole thing was a PITA to set up, but worked surprisingly well for interpreting screen content at least. The details of that project may be found here: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11186

[newbino]

review here: Top 5 Free OCR Software Tools To Convert Images Into Text (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-free-ocr-software-tools-to-convert-your-images-into-text-nb/)