Category: Geeks r Us
Hi guys! Is it true that, with OpenBook, you can scan a book or worksheet or whatever and paste it into a text file? If not, what scanners/programs can do this, and are easy to use? Also, how accurate do you find scanning to be these days? Do you find lots of errors?
Thanks in advance,
Caitlin
That's a tough one. You'll find that each program has its friends and enemies in terms of people who like or dislike them. In a very simplistic sense, many of the programs do the same things including Openbook and Kurzweil. The latter is my favorite. OCR has come a long way. It still isn't perfect, but I use at home and work.
Lou
I personally can't say whether you can directly paste OpenBook files into text ones, but what I do is go to "Library" then "convert a document", and then I save it as a text file from there but to another location other than "Library". Then I open Wordpad and paste the Notepad material into that, and then save the Wordpad one and not the Notepad one. I like it 'cause then it matches the pages with how the original OpenBook ones are.! *smile* (I know you can siply just save it as a Wordpad file in the first place, but when I do that, it throws in formatting characters and everything.) About the scanning quality, I'll admit that Kurzweil seems better with the OCR thing, (plus I like Kurzweil's voices much better), but I still like Openbook as I feel more comfortable knowing that I can read the documents almost as I would a regular document, and I am just more comfortable and familiar with the menus. Now if I could use Kurzweil's voices on OpenBook, that would be cool! *smile*
I don't want to be reading files within the scanning program, that's the thing. I want to scan them, then read them as a .txt file. Smile...Thanks for all your guys' help. Keep the suggestions coming!
Caitlin
I used to work for a place that "evaluated" folks on which kind of scanning program they preferred.
Each year we would test openbook and kerzweil (along with some of the standalone scanners) for accuracy. There's very little difference between openbook and kurzweil. It boils down to personal preference, really.
With each ;program, there are ways to do what you want to do. In fact, there are several methods to acheive the same thing.
Just try different ways and see which one works for you.
Thanks,
Bob
I use to use omney page which would automatically create it as a txt file but I really did not like the program so I switched to openbook. I've tried using the conversion tool but it never worked for me so I just do the long cut and put openbook in edit mode and coppy and paste the contents into a notepad.
Troy
you can always change the format openbook saves to.
Does OpenBook come with a good manual, and where can I order it? And can I order OpenBook itself with a scanner? Lol sorry, i'm really clueless about this kind of thing.
Thanks,
Caitlin
I would also be interested in some prices and does it only work with some scanners?
BEN.
I sued to have OpenBook from Arkenstone or howevery ou spell it, and it came with a scanner. I want to get a scanner that's accurate and will work well with OpenBook. Lol I hope this makes sense to people...Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Caitlin
Hmmm, now if I said I hate them all would I be excomunicated from the zone? Here are my thoughts: I have found Kurzweil to be consistantly easier to use and more stable then openbook. The technical support is excellent. Now, since I can't afford these rather expensive programs may I offer the following suggestion. Go to www.readingmadeeasy.com and download a demo of either text cloner or complete reading system. If you want to use a screenn reader with the ocr software use text cloner. If you want a fully voiceing application try the complete reading system. You won't spend more then 200 dollars and the programs do what they say they will do. I use text cloner here and it's fine for what I want. Also, I would highly recommend the cannon cano scan lide 60 or 70. I think the 70 is a little faster but the 60 is also good. The advantage to this unit is that it is powered from the USB port of the machine and no power cord is required. It's also slim and light wait and can be taken anyware. It will support most scanning software.
I'd say the best scanner to get is an Epson. I have the Epson Perfection 1660S. Some models of HP scanners work, too. Be sure to read the OpenBook literature, and check with Freedom to make sure that the particular model of scanner you plan to get will work. For example, not all Epson's work, either. So, ask Freedom before you actually buy your scanner.
I would aggree that the epson products are great however, the stand alone scanners are getting hard to find.
Yes, I'm with the last poster on Epson. I've had experience with OpenBook using Epsons and HP's, and I like Epson's better, as they seem to be faster.
I have the Epson CX4600, which is a combination scanner and printer, and that has been working alright for me as far as speed, and I also like that if I am scanning and suddenly realize I didn't want to scan that page, I can press space while it is scanning and it will immediately stop, whereas the HP that I had had would finish scanning anyway before canceling it. The only thing I notice is, (and I'm thinking it must have to do with the scanner I have), is that OpenBook has problems staying open. Like I will be on it, say editing or on Large Batch scanning mode, and after a few minutes it will have some kind of dialog message where I'd have to close it. I could go back into it and it'd be fine, and there are times where I could be on it for a long time, but yeah, that's my only thing with it. I have OpenBook 7.0, so not sure if it's a common thing for that kind of problem, or if it's the scanner. But aside from that little annoyance, I still do like the scanner and it does make my scanning a little faster.
its pretty much depends on what your prefference and what kind of fitures you want. i'm using both open book and kurzwill. i prefer kurzwill most of the time because to scann big thick text books with lots of tables, graphs and stuff, kurzwill can handle better than open book most of the time. and one advantage that i like the most with kurzwill is the aqurate function, its very good on scanning text and graphical matirials, where it will tell you on how aqurate your scanning result will be.
and both kurzwill and open book, can change the scann file to few other format besides using it own program. for example .RTF, .DOC, .txt, .xls, etc.
i do use both HP and Epson scanner too. Epson Perfection 1660 is my preferer scanner unless i need to have a quick scanning and printing or scann and coppying function going on for the same time. interms of the quality of scanning, epson will be much better than HP. for scanning wise, which is more faster, epson will be faster and more aqurate than Hp. or maybe, the HP 3 in 1 scanner that i have not the good one over all.
anyway, my last advice, try not to get those all in one scanner, the scanning quality not as good as those individual scanner.
hope this can help you a little
cheers, Season
I also use both openbook & kurzweil & find no major differences between the two. I like the dictionary of kurzweil. For those who asked about the prices & where to get those programs--both are around 1000 dollars. You can get openbook from freedom scientific www.freedomscientific.com & you can get kurzweil from kurzweil educational systems at www.kurzweiledu.com.
As far as scanners are concerned, the type of scanner you use "will not affect the accuracy of scanning. Most modern scanners scan 4800 dots per inch, while the ocr system need only 300 or 400 dots per inch for good recognition. The most disappointing thing for me about scanners is that it is almost impossible to find the large surface scanners these days. The standard scanner surface nowadays is 8.5 inchs by 11.70 inchs while in `the past it used to be 9.5 by 14. this makes a huge difference in our lives since most textbooks do not fit well on the surfaces of the new scanners & hence affecting the accuracy of the ocr.
Kurzweil has an Optimize Scanning feature where it will determine the best settings for the type of page you're scanning. This can greatly improve accuracy. I don't know if Openbook has a similar feature.
I teach the optimise scanning feature and it's excellent because it's a great way for a client to get a cleaner scann without haveing to deal with changing the settings. I usually just tell them to accept the defaults, grab a coffee while it's taking about 8 passes on the document, come back, read the document and if it's better then the original first scan to save the settings so that when they scann that type of document again they won't have to optimize the scan because it's already saved in the settings file which they hopefully named appropriately.
I use Kurzweil, and love it. I have no experience with Open Book, so this will all be more than a bit biased. With Kurzweil, once you scan the document, you can simply select all the text, copy it, and then paste it into whatever program you like (MSWord, Notepad, Wordpad, Etc.) You can also save the scanned document in different formats and open it in whatever program you prefer, but the copy/paste is good for quick and dirty things.
I don't know if Open Book has this capability, but one of my favorite things about Kurzweil is its ability to connect directly to Bookshare, Web Braille, NFB Newsline and a whole bunch of other book, magazine and newspaper databases. For me, at least, it's way more convenient to download and read books and magazines from Kurzweil than dealing with the whole brouhaha of saving the files to a compact flash card and then opening them on my braille note... (This is probably because I have a laptop, though, so it's pretty portable.)
As far as scanners go, while I was in high school, I used Kurzweil with an Epson scanner. Now that I'm in colllege, I use it with a Canon, and I prefer it. Could be both improvements in the scanner itself and the OCR program, but the stuff I scan now has way fewer errors than the stuff I scanned in high school.
It's all a matter of preference/availability, though. If Openbook is what you've got/can get, that's great. I'm pretty sure both programs can do just about the same stuff.
Where do you find the cannon cano
I use HP and love it mmm!