OCR and Mavericks etc

[feelsrgreen]

Hello to all
I am experiencing difficulties with OCR using a CANON CanoScan 8800F.
Two things.
Firstly the scanner would not operate with Mavericks.
A few calls to Canon Australia helping me, did not resolve that issue. They are very good.
I found that the scanner still worked on the other iMac running Snow Leopard.
So ok, for that part.

2. While using the Canon Navigator interface, there is a button for OCR.
This leads to a program I have called OCRTOOLS on the iMac. (Could use any you have.)
This program worked in the past, though I found it slow and cumbersome.
I had little use for it until recently.
Now I have a 40 page printed document on WW2 POWs and needed it copying to a word doc.
I don't have any MS programs. Nor PC machines. All OCR programs for Mac, which seem to very few, were expensive - over $100 and may not be what I wanted....
SO I tried a workaround using the iPad.
Again I sought an OCR for the iPad, found some, many claimed to OCR and more, some are very cheap or free.
I experimented with 3 and was disappointed, expecting too much.
Eventually found a solution. The program, like the others, uses the iPad camera, reads the document to OCR it, saving that to a file copy, was easy.
The result was a line by line text of the original. Vey clean with little mistakes.
I needed to send that to the iMac and used another program called DRAFT on the iPad.
So 'select all' copy and paste into a new page on DRAFT and we have it ready.
(You can do a lot of corrections etc in DRAFT.)
Emailed direct from Draft to the iMac and we are home.
Downside is I can only do one page at a time. First stage took 1.5 hrs copying 40 pages.
Copy and paste 40 times to DRAFT and emailed each page to iMac. A long way round but effective. Cost? about $3 I think.
Does anyone knows of a better OCR for iMac? - I know the SnapScan machine, again I wonder about how good it is, and for OSX.
Anyway I have finished this job for now.
So have a good family time this next week.
Noel

[jbastin]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Hello to all
I am experiencing difficulties with OCR using a CANON CanoScan 8800F.
Two things.
Firstly the scanner would not operate with Mavericks.
A few calls to Canon Australia helping me, did not resolve that issue. They are very good.
I found that the scanner still worked on the other iMac running Snow Leopard.
So ok, for that part.

I recommend you take a look at VueScan

http://www.hamrick.com

It is scanner software which allows continued use of scanners that are no longer compatible with Mac OS X (the web page says it's compatible with over 2300 scanners). I've been using it for years with my Epson scanner and it still does a fine job in Mavericks.

VueScan has a variety of output formats, and it also has some OCR functions. From the web page:

"VueScan can output scanned documents, photos, and film in PDF, JPEG and TIFF formats. It can also recognize text using OCR and create multi-page pdfs using both flatbed scanners and scanners with automatic document feeders.

Hope this helps.

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Thanks John I did look at vueScan, but it is too expensive, I feel for the little I would use it.
I will reiterate - I need a decent OCR for Mavericks.
It Must be able to utilise a Canon scanner or scanner/printer.
Most scanners work well but only result in Jpegs which is NOT OCR to text.
The scanner program must gives reliable and accurate results.
I have 'PDF pen Pro,' also expensive, has never given me what I needed in the past, was unreliable or unworkable, plus they wanted paid updates, etc.

I did manage to get that big job done as I detailed, but an extra page was more quickly retrieved by using Evernote, instead of emailing from Draft.
A simple copy and paste from the OCR file to evernote and I had it on the iMac.
The program I used on this iPad for OCR is 'Character Recognition'- from the App Store.
The iPad is being used everyday for many simple tasks to copy items like BMD documents, heirloom jewellery and other artifacts from my grandparents etc. I don't have an iPhone and the iPad works well.

Just wanted to pass on some notes about my experience with scanners, OCR, mavericks etc.
Now I am learning the new Pages program, a xx beast, with little help compared to the old one under Mountain Lion. (I still have the old Pages on the mac.)
Thanks to all for the help. I enjoy reading and learning every day.
Noel

[Bob White]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

I'm having very good performance on my iPhone and my iPad with an app named TextGrabber. It is authored by the ABBYY company who makes excellent OCR software for Macs and PCs. It costs $5.99 at the App Store and is occasionally on sale for less.

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Thanks Bob, that little beauty is perhaps better than the Character Recognition app.
Just downloaded and did a test page in English. So far I don't have any documents in other languages but translation would be very handy when needed.
Just goes to show what a query on Reunion can do to get results all round.
Solved - OCR and iPad plus Evernote etc - works for me.
Hope others who need advice read these and keep informed.
So easy to post a query not like some other sites. Thanks reunion staff as well.

NOW I shall return to the iMac and Mavericks question.
Is there anyone with a mac and mavericks who has an OCR application which works?
The canon scanner I have works OK on snow leopard for now.
Just the OCR bit to complete the set.
Happy new year to all.

Noel

[Tony Goring]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

NOW I shall return to the iMac and Mavericks question.
Is there anyone with a mac and mavericks who has an OCR application which works?
Noel

Yes. I have the CanoScan 8800F scanner, Mavericks, and VueScan. With this setup OCR is for me entirely satisfactory. In over 20 years of Mac use VueScan is just about the most useful non

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Thanks Tony I shall revisit VueScan etc when the elves have returned to their day jobs.
Have a great NEW Year.

Noel

1.1.14

[Michael Talibard]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Is there anyone with a mac and mavericks who has an OCR application which works?

Yes. I am very happy with ABBYY FineReader.

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks

Update on the CanoScan 8800F scanner and mavericks.
I ran into the troubles as mentioned earlier trying OCR.
That was resolved, for now.
I've not tried ABBY Finereader, cos now the CanoScan 8800F refuses to work with Mavericks at all. Then checking with the Canon 3200 combined scanner/printer, it too refuses to scan under mavericks! prints ok.
Both Canons work ok with Snow leopard! scanning and printing as usual. So that is not a problem as we are just a couple of metrs apart and on a home network.
I read on the Apple support site that many printers etc have not updated successfully to Mavericks yet. Hence their squeals.
I await my resumed enquiry with Canon.

Noel

[Bob White]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

You didn't say whether or not you have downloaded and installed the latest driver yourself. You do not need to wait for Apple. Canon updated the 8800's driver this past October which would seem to indicate it was for Mavericks. If you haven't done this task, you can download from http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/suppor...ersAndSoftware.

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

Thanks Bob, I have been downloading the drivers from Canon for the 8800F but still no luck there. Seems a common complaint on the Apple Support Community Help site. I will wait for a reply to my last email to Canon, Australia, last week.
By a strange co-incidence I tried the Canon MG 3200 scan/printer on the MacBook, running mavericks.
It too, does not work with the 8800F, but I thought I'd try another approach. (Not sure if it is relevant) but I had not removed the plist for Canon on the MacBook/Mavericks as recommended by Canon.
So when I tried Image Capture lo and behold it worked with cannon MG3200! 😀
So happy now I have a scanner working with Mavericks!
Image Capture still no go on the iMac.( Again seems no one has succeeded according to the Apple Support Communities site). More trying and referencing needed.

By the way Bob, and all others, I am in Australia. So the printers and scanners from all makers have separate models to the US it seems?
All suppliers here have Australian web sites and do supply drivers from their site for our needs.
One big reason is that A4 is the default size here and paper etc is all metric sizes.
Legal sizes plus letter from USA and Canada etc will not fit home scanners causing lots of work arounds.
Specialist printer shops cater for this need though, when required.
I hope this explains some of our dilemmas.
Oh yes and software is often not Australia friendly. 😁😁

Reunion is never a problem AFAIK. - At least by me. 😍😍😍 ....
Thanks for all the help.
Noel

[feelsrgreen]

Re: OCR and Mavericks etc

UPDATE -- 25 Aug 2015. - Thanks for all the help, some worked and some not.
I have now upgraded to Yosemite with one iMac and El Capitan beta on another.
All seems to be working with the two other Canon multi use beasts.
I did try Canon Corp.Australia and downloaded what seemed to be useful drivers.
The old Caonoscan 8800F has been gathering dust and I can still use it on the Snow Leopard.
SO I wondered if the El Cap system would be ok with the Canoscan.
Again I did the deal with Canon and the driver I received was labelled different, but I went with that. NO GO.
Then - I did a relook on the downloads, and found the NAVIGATOR download, which I had not opened, as I thought it was for Microsoft machines.
Tried that and LO ! Scanner etc did work, but only through Navigator.
Relearning took a while and it seems to be so old fashioned and clunky.
Reunion 11 and all my Canon multis work ok with El Capitan.
ALAS OCR through Navigator does not work (?).. I leave it for now till the full edition, and will use the scanner for negatives which I reverse with an old copy of Adobe Elements.
BTW not all OCR equipment mentioned in prev posts were available in Australia.
Good luck with yours. Noel