Cheap (free?) OS X OCR app or plug-in sought...

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
My friend (the chick with the iBook ) has about 50 pages she needs to "digitize" (the electronic versions of these exist nowhere, according to here. It's just gobs and gobs of text that she really doesn't want to re-type.



The scanning part is no problem (my Mom has a Canon 1224-something or other USB scanner and I borrow it occasionally and have downloaded its OS X drivers and software from Canon's site already). It works great, either standalone or via a plug-in through Photoshop CS. That's no problem at all...



But the OCR stuff that came bundled with it seems to be PC-based, and of no use to my friend. The scanner is about 2 years or so old and any Mac software that IS bundled is not OS X-native.



So we're looking for something that - once she scans the page - will convert the scans, via OCR, to editable text that she can spell-check, clean up, edit, etc.



OmniPage for OS X costs $500, so that's not gonna happen. Anyone suggesting that gets a smack.



(This is a college student and this need doesn't come up much at all...certainly not enough to justify that price!)



I looked through the OS X downloads section at Apple's site, even typing "OCR" in the Search field and it came back with ONE find, and it's not anything of any use.



Any of you know were a downloadable OS X-native shareware/freeware/demo/LE version of some sort OCR app might be?



Thanks in advance...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    pirate it...



    seriously.... that is the only OCR software that I know of on ANY platform...



    and it is absolutely horrendous...



    does she have access to a lab that has a scanner and OCR software like we do at BC?
  • Reply 2 of 6
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    How about Omnipage for OS X?



    Anyways, zero clue how this one works, it's called ReadIris Pro... but it turned up on a Google search:

    http://www.irisusa.com/products/download/index.html



    That's a link to a 30 day demo.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    crusadercrusader Posts: 1,129member
    How about Omnipage for Mac 68k? I have a copy in my desk somewhere.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I have - and will only have - OS X on my Mac. I'll take a BB gun to my left eye before I befoul my PowerBook with OS 9 or anything earlier. I'd transcribe these 50 pages myself before I do that.







    But thanks!



    And my friend is the same way...she's a switcher of sorts and has only known OS X. I'm not about to complicate her life by installing a completely different OS on there. And I'd hate to ugly up her iBook G4 that way.



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