[Trainer-Talk] Preferred OCR software recommendation

[Enrique Mejia]

For most of my OCR needs I have used the KNFB reader app. I have not used it with Windows, but I heard it works really well. 
Also simply scanning documents with the stock scanner application on Windows and then using JAWS OCR has worked well for me as well. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Trainer-Talk [mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Greg Aikens via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2019 2:28 PM
To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Greg Aikens <gaikens at cviga.org>
Subject: [Trainer-Talk] Preferred OCR software recommendation

Hi all,
I'm wondering what OCR software you use for teaching and recommend for clients to purchase.

Our center has had Openbook and TextCloner Pro, but I don't believe either are actively being developed anymore. I like the simplicity of these products but feel they could do better with reliably recreating text formatting, white space, etc. Also, the fact that neither has released an updated version in quite some time does not indicate to me that they will continue to be good solutions. I hate recommending people spend money on outdated software.

I have been playing with JAWS OCR, which I feel is far more accurate than Openbook, but don't like that when you copy and paste from the results viewer to a word document, you get all kinds of invisible formatting tables that makes the document extremely cumbersome to read, unless you go in and remove the tables. If anyone knows a work around for this, I would appreciate it. I also like that the JAWS OCR will work with the flatbed scanner, although it does not support scanning multiple pages unless you have a scanner with auto document feed.

I love and teach my clients to use RoboBraille, but know that this is not a good solution for sensitive info, such as client documentation, etc.

We recently purchased a copy of OmniPage, which seems to be perfectly accessible but probably a little more complicated than what the average user needs.

I would love to hear what you guys are using.

Thanks for your help.

Greg Aikens
Senior Assistive Technology Instructor
Center for the Visually Impaired<http://www.cviga.org/>
739 West Peachtree Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
404-602-4285

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