Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Like a lot of PDF tools, converters & such, PDF Converter Pro is a bit of a front end to existing freeware or open source apps -- in that respect it's a bit like the many ffmpeg-based video converters that are often so similar. Here's another example I *just* came across -- haven't had any chance to install or test yet...
   http://www.iskysoft.com/promotion/halloween/

   [Note: The other day Ashraf gave away an app on a Facebook page -- in his instructions he pointed out how hitting the Tab key repeatedly eventually placed the mouse cursor in the proper Name & E-mail fields, though you had to look closely because they were blocked by the semi-transparent Facebook layer]

   At any rate, the main reason for this post is to point out Tesseract -- open source OCR software used by PDFMate PDF Converter Pro & a lot of other programs &/or GUIs -- because at least a few folks in GOTD comments seemed interested in the OCR end of things.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract_%28software%29

   Wikipedia links to the site where you'll find downloads, translations etc. -- I linked to Wikipedia rather than the site because their article talks about some of the limitations that can take you a while to find otherwise. It likely will Never work for top -> down or right -> left languages for example.

   Posted 10 years ago #
2. 

   Quantum Dragon
   Member

   This iskysoft promo is offered several times a year and DOES NOT offer the OCR!

   It is also known as Wondershare PDF converter (Exact same layout, colors & version number).

   In both cases, you need the pro version for the OCR capabilities! (NOT FREE)

   In the case of PDFMate, the free version offers the OCR but ONLY for 3 pages, you again need to buy the pro for FULL OCR.

   Posted 10 years ago #
3. 

   Quantum Dragon
   Member

   The best Windows FREE OCR (No pun intended) out there using the Tesseract Engine (Version 3.01) is FreeOCR.

   " Warning ": When you do the install, don't forget to decline the three or four offers that pop up!

   FreeOCR is a freeware OCR & scanning software and you can do what you like with it including commercial use. The included Tesseract OCR engine is distributed under the Apache V2.0 license. The latest release is from October 2013, it bills itself as an Optical Character Recognition Software for Windows and supports scanning from most Twain scanners and can also open most scanned PDF's and multi page Tiff images as well as popular image file formats.

   FreeOCR outputs plain text and can export directly to Microsoft Word format. It includes a Windows installer and It is very simple to use. FreeOCR V4 includes Tesseract V3 which increases accuracy and has page layout analysis so more accurate results can be achieved without using the zone selection tool. As well as OCR FreeOCR can scan and save images as JPG's and we are currently working on "Scan to PDF" capability with the option to save as searchable PDF.

   Operating System: Windows XP (Service pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows 7 & Windows 8 Desktop (not RT/Metro)

   Recommended Minimum Specification: 1024 MB Memory (RAM), 20 MB Free Disk Space, SVGA Resolution Display, .Net Framework 2.0 or higher

   More info here: http://www.paperfile.net/index.html

   Download page: http://www.paperfile.net/download.html

   Additional Languages: http://www.paperfile.net/lang.html

   Getting Started with FreeOCR (Online Help): http://www.paperfile.net/help.html

   " Again Warning ": When you install, don't forget to decline the three or four offers that pop up!

   Posted 10 years ago #
4. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Thanks for that

   Some of the people commenting on the GOTD download page seemed like OCR was important to them, that they were looking for a decent solution -- hopefully what you've added helps.

   Myself, used to use OCR all the time loooong ago, but doesn't seem like I've fired up an OCR app in an age nowadays.

   Posted 10 years ago #

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