I sent this message to Softpedia about the award for this program:

http://www.cadkas.com/downengtools11.php carries a badge saying they are certified by Softpedia. However, searching for that program or company did not yield results other than thru Google. [searching on the Softpedia site]

Hello,

The program is clean, the award had to be updated. Thank you!
http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/Scanned-Text-Editor-Clean-68938.html


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http://www.cadkas.com/downengtools11.php carries a badge saying they are certified by Softpedia. However, searching for that program or company did not yield results other than thru Google.

Malware/adware considerations notwithstanding, this program does not SEEM do what it seems to purport to do.
The text is not actually "editable!" Its more like a graphic image.

Like any decent image ediror, you can:
add text to the image
select text or graphics and:
move the it around or
delete it OR change the font and size
but you cannot insert text or change characters nor is the text "format" usable (ie. you can't easily insert a word into a paragraph, etc

Also I saved the file in the proprietary(?) .sca format. but i would not allow me to load or edit the image after that :(

After reading the comments on this page I have to agree with "friendinme" about bearing "some burden of scrutiny before installing a program". There is just too much negative on this program for me to consider installing this on my computer.

I want programs that will make things easier for me, not complicate things and give me more headaches. I have enough of those things already. Any program that is going to install malware or adware on my computer is not welcome, and then if it does not even load and run properly, WHY would I want it? Even if it is free, it is not worth it. Then to top it all off, it does not even come with adequate Help Files, or tutorials... So this program gets a big "NO" from me. Thanks, but no thanks.

The Job is not bad BUT if you have ABBYY FineReager 9 Pro + Photoshop The Job is a way better. 79$ is really not the good price for this soft Sorry.

@ Joel
well, English is not my motherlanguage too ... :-)
I mean that a document like the one in the "first image" by Do Do Re doesn't need to be acquired in colour: it's made with black lines (text, images ...) on a uniform background, white or yellow or pink. Better to acquire it as a simple Black/White: it may be called "line art", "2 bit", it depends on the software given whith the scanner. IMHO it's counterproductive to use a color depth higher than necessary.
If Do Do Re had used the black sheet trick and acquired the pages as line art, he could have gained a far better result.
Bye.

This is great, and easy to use. I scanned an image of a waterfall and was able to easily convert it into perfectly readable text. Very nice. I wonder how many text books started out this way, as images. I will soon be converting all my vacation photos into a novel. Thumbs up!

I installed this on Win7 32bit. When I try to scan a document it gives me error. Access Violation in module 'GrafikRW2.dll'.
I think I'll pass on the program.

My first thought was that this was the type of software that is a solution looking for a problem. I couldn't imagine many uses for it.

I found a possible use for it though. When I loaded a scanned double page of a book I discovered that it was quite easy to remove the black shadow artefacts in the spine between the pages and along the edges. When I simply click on the spine shadow it automatically selects the complete shadow and even some contiguous parts along the page edges. With a few additional clicks and selections + [Delete] button the page cleans up nicely. A sort of 'Off-Label' use.

Unfortunately a HUGE omission is the lacking support to save in (lossless) PNG format. The original was in that format and was 112KB in size. When I save it in a lossless format as TIFF (no compressed TIFF support either) or BMP the cleaned up page is 31MB (!!!) in size. Yikes!

It also doesn't seem to be able to load multi-page TIFFs, which happened to be the first thing I tried.

Decent help info is virtually nonexistent. Really!! If I could only get an explanation about what the levels for Background and Text exactly define. I can guess they are brightness levels that are cut-off levels to define what will be white and what black and that the levels in between will be left out but guessing is not the same as knowing.

How many hours will have been spent developing this software? If the maker would even spend only one single hour on writing some documentation it would make a huge difference with the current level of help information.

What's also annoying is that it always starts up with a postage stamp-sized window. I doesn't 'remember' its window size on exit and doesn't seem to have an option to save window size/position.

A few zoom buttons for 100%, 'Whole page'. 'Fit to window' and 'Fit to width' would be very helpful too. Zooming is rather cumbersome it its current implementation.

There's still a lot of room for improvement. Even for a version 1.0 it still seems a little rough.

Zonealarm "site is known for malware", why even attempt to load it. I respect giveawayoftheday and trust their judgement, but everyone makes a mistake sometimes. If you are not an expert you might be loading things that become irritating later. So "No" from me. Plus the price is a bit high!

it is too high price ( $79 ) , i want this software just for $29...

Why do you guys complain about the price when it is free for a day? It is up to the company to decide what price is good for their product. Have a smile today :]

I have a question for those of you that have downloaded the application. Will this program seperate images from their background and can it be used to edit a photograph by moving or removing an image from a photograph?

If any of you have tried this please let me know. I'd like to know before I download it.

I often visit the product website before I install the GAOTD software. My trust of GOATD notwithstanding, I think we bear some burden of scrutiny before installing a program.

This particular website says something about the product:

--The product preview is laughable. It shows moving text around and then replacing it with text that doesn't match, leaving a very unprofessional result. Really? Is that showing us what it can do?

--The "award" list is, in my opinion, quite deceptive. Three of the badges aren't actually awards, but declare the product to be virus-free and Win7 compatible. That's okay... it looks nice but really says nothing about the product itself.

However, of the remaining two that grant an "award," Downloadkings gives everything on the site a 5-trophy rating, and soft32downloads (not to be confused with the more reputable "soft32.com") gives a five-star award based on 0 user reviews and no professional reviews. In other words, the "award" is granted to the company that pays extra for their listing.

sketchy promotion + bad preview = pass

Kept getting 'Access Violation in Module GrafikRW2.dll'.
This is a very common problem for me with GOTD give-a-ways for some reason.
Another, is having to run the setup file several times before it will connect and activiate if at all.

Re: Comments at 15, 17 and 21. It may be well to state that there are spelling mistakes in the program documentation and comments. Yes, the Program is from a German Company and as with each language, if and when translated certain words end up in a different place in the sentence. This may be well and good, but what most people don't do is reread in what they have written in the comment box. Correct your spelling mistakes before pressing the submit comment button.

@28 agree 100%, on the other side, take a software like IObit, top notch programs from the Cnet top 10 section with 70.000 downloads a day, but various spelling errors in their products interfaces.

But... their website looks perfect, companies who have errors even in their presentation I don't trust either.

In general I think it's the overall 'feeling' that counts, and such as 'spelling errors' does help create that feeling, personally I think their website looks like total cr** too, it's so 90s !

I pulled out the setup file (which is a self extracting archive and uploaded it to some online virus scanners. Here are the results:

0/43 - VirusTotalhttp://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=e4ebad36891a824b248140064f2bfca84b6d4c8c5e1b94daf518c7ffa3a28df5-1284215776
0/19 VirusScan.Jotti.orghttp://virusscan.jotti.org/en/scanresult/1558b93af55648643d539e7d71e68650a4f698fe
0/16 - NoVirusThankshttp://scanner2.novirusthanks.org/analysis/7b00338fecc38767343f508633e2b818/c2Nhbm5lZHRleHRlZGl0b3ItZXhl/

Looks clean even though the site has some bad ratings. It's always possible it's an unknown virus, but this piece of software looks safe to use.

XXX AVOID XXX. This is a piece of crap. Huge resource pig at 291,824 k and a number of access violations, i.e. address 100A1051 in module GrafikRw2.dll. Developers should be ashamed.

XP Pro SP3

Keep getting Access Violation in Module GrafikRW2.dll.
Had I been able to test this program, I did notice it will only work on it's own scanned images and not on files already on the computer. It also lacks a "Rotate" button, so useless for any work in landscape mode.

Not a keeper.

Nigel

#18: "... While I would have liked it to be able to work with PDF pages directly, this will be of benefit for thos pages where there are diagrams I want to preserve but change or add to the text of the diagramme. Currently I am using EVE to trace simple diagrams if I want to reproduce them."

If you can't find an app to edit or convert your PDF files, & if you're unable to just copy paste the diagrams you want/need, besides Scanned Text Editor you might want to investigate working with or in Microsoft's XPS format. You can create a XPS document by printing from the app you're using to view the document, in your case I'd assume Adobe's reader, & usually the results look very good if not identical to the original. The harder part is editing, because like PDF, XPS is designed to protect the content -- however there are xaml editors that will work (both free & not), & overall it might be both easier & more accurate for your purposes.

Vincenzo. What did you mean by "And to acquire it at 2 bit". I can understand the other part of your comment. Thanks

Scanned Text Editor is a small [10 files, ~3.5MB], portable app for working with image files. In a nutshell it lets you independently move around any shapes or objects that it can separate from the background. Today's GOTD comes packaged in a WinRAR self-extracting file that adds Start Menu shortcuts plus an un-install file to the Windows folder.

You optionally adjust the threshold values & it selects everything that isn't white, turning any groups of continuous, colored pixels into movable objects that you can also delete. You can then save the images that way in it's proprietary format, or merge all of the individual objects with the background & either print or export a regular image file. You select the objects you want to move, delete etc by clicking on them, & you can select multiple objects by shift + clicking them or by drawing a rectangle around all the objects you want to select. You can also add new text or paste a separate image file -- when you click the button to "Add Picture" the cursor turns into cross-hairs that you click + drag to set the dimensions or area you want the image to fill -> when you've set the area click again & the image open dialog pops up to import your image file... Scanned Text Editor sizes & pastes the image accordingly, keeping the original aspect ratio [i.e. it won't stretch the image to fill all the available area]. You can import most common image file formats [plus a few uncommon ones], or use a scanner, either via Twain or WIA [i.e. the 2 main ways that you access/communicate with scanner drivers in Windows]. You can have more than one instance of Scanned Text Editor running, but I couldn't get it to copy paste between them.

That all said I'm not sure what you'd want to use Scanned Text Editor for... It might come in handy if you were forwarding a fax or something like that I imagine, but that's about it since you'll either leave traces of gray on the background or, if you set the threshold high enough to eliminate that, it will probably look like a lower quality copy... scanned text just isn't perfectly sharp, but rather feathered around the edges, & when you get rid of that feathering [i.e. set the threshold high enough], it starts to look aliased &/or blocky.

wdh,,,The software company is located in Germany, their native language is German not English. Under the circumstances I think their English is very good. How well do you speak or write German? If everyone spoke and wrote English as well as you would like, there probably wouldn't be any need for a text editor. By the way I believe you mean won't not "wont" and since, unlike the software writers, your native language is English you really need considering improving your own spelling before you knock some one else's.

this is kind of advanced version of Paint. if i didnt have this software, i would make a screenshot of my doc and then replace the text by using Paint.

@ #13
#5 provided information that fans of giveawayoftheday like to know.

I will download this despite that alert but I very much appreciate it.

Fake awards and malware distribution accusations are important information that we should know and consider.

Web of Trust's rating are based on the ratings of general users so we take it with a grain of salt but it's helpful info and I appreciate anyone who points out fake awards or WOT info.

This site is awesome and so are the reviewers. Even if the are computer beginners, misspell words or report site reputations, they are valued and make this site great!

It does what it purports to do on the tests I have performed. It works on jpgs, gifs, and on PDFs converted to jpgs. While I would have liked it to be able to work with PDF pages directly, this will be of benefit for thos pages where there are diagrams I want to preserve but change or add to the text of the diagramme. Currently I am using EVE to trace simple diagrams if I want to reproduce them.

@15 (wdh)... Ahhh, you beat me to the punch! I just got throught reading the description and "manual" and saw the same thing! Hear, hear; if not willing to learn English, at least get a spell-checker!

If the company distributing this product is unable to spell correctly, then there is no way I would even consider utilizing their program.

I wont download any software labeled as a text editor from someone who can't spell...the correct spelling would be LOSING...it is spelled wrong twice in the title and description:"Scanned Text Editor form CadKas can help you to edit any scanned document without loseing anything.-Edit any scanned document without loosing anything. Layout and quality will remain as in the original document. The program will NOT try to recognize the text, instead it will free the characters and ..."

Hi,
I used this with old scanned document. And I get a much more easy to read result. I could also change the document by moving or deleting words. But I won't do so.
The program does definitely things other programs don't do.
So both thumps up!
Hugo

# 5 ????


WARNING!

Web of Trust reports the site may be engaged in distribution of malware!

Some poking around reveals that the images on the site claiming to be awards may be fake. None of them link back to their respective sites, and I’ve never heard of some of them!

Comment by Nofew — September 11th, 2010 at 3:57 am



Well who cares about this??

You don't have to download it from their official sales page, aren't you?

Don't you trust GAOTD??

The link is not working,

Vmware Solutions

It does appear to work but is very restrictive in what it will open. On a bitmap it blurred the image but kept the text so any changes were useless, other files it would not open despite looking for picture files. Great idea but distinctly average or below average implementation. Massively over priced, I think $9 would be more like it. Will play with it some more later but as it is small in size and may well work on some other files of mine it is a keeper for now.

Honestly, I am not very impressed with this software. Language capabilities are very limited, non-latin letters are difficult to separate from the background, the colored background is a pain.

Anyway, I am currently keeping it. I suppose I will use it rarely when a scanned document has to be retouched. Thanks, GAOTD!

@ Do Do Re:
I haven't tried the software, but referring to your #first image# ... the best (and only) way to avoid the background superposition is to put a black sheet of paper (also a photocopy made leaving the lid open) behind the page you're scanning. And to acquire it at 2 bit.
Try it ... :-)

http://my.jetscreenshot.com/demo/20100911-rsev-172kb
here is a corect image,i put at setting:Value to separate Text and Background,i replace at:text value,50(default) with 20,and result is like in reality.Problem is that not have function :Preview.But is working good.

http://my.jetscreenshot.com/demo/20100911-pvkm-187kb
This is the first image.It was scaned at my HP printing.You see that is a superposition.
Next i use this soft and i select scaner>Scan>Edit documents>Hide background(here are some setting to do(I not make this setting and result was not so good,it must to try until will be good).Here is result:
http://my.jetscreenshot.com/demo/20100911-6oqc-138kb
another trial was to put a text(i write Penseta)on this image.Ater you enter in :Edit Documents you go to:Add text>write your text>next click on enter(is Return) and result is here:
http://my.jetscreenshot.com/demo/20100911-zdq7-129kb
Loock at up-right corner,is write:Penseta.
Images was scaned in another position and also editing(writing text).After that i rotate images and capture with Jet Schreenshot.
Soo ,my conclusion is that is good but you must to have patience to make more trial until the result will be good.I didnt try,make research if is function to preview your setting.It will be good to be in real time,to not make more trials.Thank.

What a great idea. I have an old version of Abby Fine Reader,
which does a good OCR job. But there is still a lot of correcting to
do. With this everything stays the same, except what you want to change.

From reading the description on their web site, I thought I
was limited to either the BMP format or their own SCA format. The program actually works with lots of graphic formats. And it is very easy to use.

WARNING!

Web of Trust reports the site may be engaged in distribution of malware!

Some poking around reveals that the images on the site claiming to be awards may be fake. None of them link back to their respective sites, and I've never heard of some of them!

seems to work as advertised! I installed it on windows 7 64bit no problem and was able to effectively move around the text. the only issue is that it sometimes (depending on the font) joins 2 or more letters together and sometimes splits one letter into sections. however this seems like a great program. who knows what I will use it for though!

MS Office Onenote does this and more. But that will not directly edit the image, instead allows copying text from images and supports more non English languages. Its OCR capabilities are also very good.

I think $79 is very steep for this software.

MS Office Onenote does this and more. But it will not directly edit the image, instead allows copying text from images and supports more non English languages. Its OCR capabilities are also very good. I think $79 is very steap for this software.

I am visiting their homepage regularly.
But their demo tutorials videos really do not play on my machine
I think I will wait for other's comments.
Thanks in advance
Dr Nitin