Importing scanned data

Hi all

I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
from scanned hard copies.
The data is typed and "clean".
Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it would
still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.

Thanks

--
Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears

OK it was probably asking a bit much to find a free converter. Anyone know
of a good value one?

"Jack Sheet" <mind-the-gap@DEEPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:O%237z$2XqGHA.4992@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Hi all
>
> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
> from scanned hard copies.
> The data is typed and "clean".
> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
> format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it
> would still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears
>

Jack

The OCR application is employed at the time of scanning the data and creates a
*.txt file or scans directly to a word processing Application like MS Word.

The scanner most always comes with the OCR program.

You cannot "convert" a jpeg to a a text file that Excel could read.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:25:45 +0100, "Jack Sheet"
<mind-the-gap@DEEPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>OK it was probably asking a bit much to find a free converter. Anyone know
>of a good value one?
>
>"Jack Sheet" <mind-the-gap@DEEPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:O%237z$2XqGHA.4992@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
>> from scanned hard copies.
>> The data is typed and "clean".
>> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
>> format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it
>> would still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> --
>> Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears
>>
>

I try http://www.shareware.com
and then search for OCR.

Maybe you can find something listed in:
http://lists.thedatalist.com/



Jack Sheet wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
> from scanned hard copies.
> The data is typed and "clean".
> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
> format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it would
> still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears

--

Dave Peterson

>> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG
>> format from scanned hard copies.
>> The data is typed and "clean".
>> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into
>> .xls format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking,
>> but it would still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.

> The scanner most always comes with the OCR program.
>
> You cannot "convert" a jpeg to a a text file that Excel could read.

I did an experiment.

Starting with an Excel file containing a rectangular table of random
numbers, I did:

<Alt-Print Screen>

Paste the image into the "Paint" program

Trim off the extraneous stuff in Paint.

Print from Paint to MS-Office ImageWriter. (To replicate OP's situation, I
could've started with a jpeg file and printed to ImageWriter.)

In the resulting "Imaging" window, use
Tools >> Send text to Word
This made an MS-Word document containing a table.

Copy the table and paste it back into a new blank Excel document.

In this round-about round trip, only about 80% of the numbers were correct.
The problems were primarily recognizing the decimal point. Sometimes it was
omitted; other times, a digit next to the decimal point was turned into a
letter.

Draw your own conclusions. My conclusion is not to rely on ImageWriter's
OCR for numerical data. Maybe other OCR programs would be better.

Gord

Thanks, but I don't have the scanner, I am only presented with the scanned
data, and this is in jpg format. So at the moment I have no OCR capability
at all, except as suggested by MyVeryOwnSelf (which I have not tried yet).

I will look around.

"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca> wrote in message
news:f3unb251j0mr39kihhk6dk4nindtfbj7gc@4ax.com...
> Jack
>
> The OCR application is employed at the time of scanning the data and
> creates a
> *.txt file or scans directly to a word processing Application like MS
> Word.
>
> The scanner most always comes with the OCR program.
>
> You cannot "convert" a jpeg to a a text file that Excel could read.
>
>
> Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
>
> On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:25:45 +0100, "Jack Sheet"
> <mind-the-gap@DEEPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>OK it was probably asking a bit much to find a free converter. Anyone
>>know
>>of a good value one?
>>
>>"Jack Sheet" <mind-the-gap@DEEPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:O%237z$2XqGHA.4992@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
>>> from scanned hard copies.
>>> The data is typed and "clean".
>>> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
>>> format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it
>>> would still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> --
>>> Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears
>>>
>>
>

Thanks for the links

"Dave Peterson" <petersod@verizonXSPAM.net> wrote in message
news:44BBFCC5.227B4AE1@verizonXSPAM.net...
>I try http://www.shareware.com
> and then search for OCR.
>
> Maybe you can find something listed in:
> http://lists.thedatalist.com/
>
>
>
> Jack Sheet wrote:
>>
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG format
>> from scanned hard copies.
>> The data is typed and "clean".
>> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into .xls
>> format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking, but it
>> would
>> still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> --
>> Return email address is not as DEEP as it appears
>
> --
>
> Dave Peterson

Thanks for the attempt. I will give it a try.

"MyVeryOwnSelf" <self@emailNot.nul> wrote in message
news:Xns98039C3FC2B29RCLQUSHB976@216.196.97.136...
>>> I have a substantial quantity of tabulated data presented in JPEG
>>> format from scanned hard copies.
>>> The data is typed and "clean".
>>> Is there a freebie utility out there that will "OCR" this data into
>>> .xls format? I appreciate that it will then need careful checking,
>>> but it would still be a lot quicker than typing it all in.
>
>> The scanner most always comes with the OCR program.
>>
>> You cannot "convert" a jpeg to a a text file that Excel could read.
>
> I did an experiment.
>
> Starting with an Excel file containing a rectangular table of random
> numbers, I did:
>
> <Alt-Print Screen>
>
> Paste the image into the "Paint" program
>
> Trim off the extraneous stuff in Paint.
>
> Print from Paint to MS-Office ImageWriter. (To replicate OP's situation, I
> could've started with a jpeg file and printed to ImageWriter.)
>
> In the resulting "Imaging" window, use
> Tools >> Send text to Word
> This made an MS-Word document containing a table.
>
> Copy the table and paste it back into a new blank Excel document.
>
> In this round-about round trip, only about 80% of the numbers were
> correct.
> The problems were primarily recognizing the decimal point. Sometimes it
> was
> omitted; other times, a digit next to the decimal point was turned into a
> letter.
>
> Draw your own conclusions. My conclusion is not to rely on ImageWriter's
> OCR for numerical data. Maybe other OCR programs would be better.