[bksvol-discuss] Re: Fw: Scanning with FineReader, long

Heya Jake, 

I have filed this because when you delete good information someone asks you
about it:) 


-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jana Jackson
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:09 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Fw: Scanning with FineReader, long

Jake, thank you so much!  I will keep this for future reference. <Smile>

Jana

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jake Brownell" <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2005 10:35 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Fw: Scanning with FineReader, long


> Reposting for Jana...hope this helps, its what showed up in my archive
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Donna Smith" <donnafsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 9:57 PM
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Scanning with FineReader, long
>
>
>> Hi all, and a very happy new year!  I was out of pocket yet again, having
>> house guests for a week and then there was all that holiday cheer to
> share,
>> but I have mostly caught up with messages and am ready to present
>> scanning with FineReader 101.  Excuse me just a minute while I don my
>> Mistress of FineReader gear.  Ah yes, spike-heeled boots in place...now
>> where did I put that whip??  <grin>
>>
>> My standard disclaimer:  I am not now, nor have I ever been, a software
>> developer, a technology specialist, or a student in any formal sense of
>> computers.  So to all you computer geeks out there, and you know who you
>> are, don't get excited when I use lay terms to discuss something instead
> of
>> geek lingo.  Don't make me have to find my whip!
>>
>> As with other scanning software, it's all in the options and how you set
>> them.  What I describe below are my typical settings for scanning in
>> two-page mode, regular print, straight text, with the book fitting nicely
> on
>> the scanner bed.  Any setting can be changed or tweaked to produce
> slightly
>> different results, but this is the base from which I usually start.
>>
>> Open FineReader and go to the tools menu by pressing alt for menus and
> then
>> T for tools.  This will probably put you on the spell-check selection.
>> Press O for options and you will find yourself in a dialogue box with six
>> groups of settings to muck around with.  These six groups are:  1. 
>> general
>> page; 2. view page; 3. scan open image page; 4. recognition page; 5. 
>> check
>> spelling page; and 6. formatting page.  Now the fun begins.
>>
>> In each group of settings above, you have choices to make, check boxes to
>> check or uncheck, a myriad of little things that will fine tune the scan
> you
>> get, and when you learn what they all can do for you, you will find that
>> your life as a scanner and the lives of all of our validator friends will
>> suddenly become much better.  I urge you to really explore all of these
>> options on numerous occasions until they begin to make sense and you 
>> begin
>> to understand their purpose.  There's nothing that can be done in this
>> dialogue box that can't be undone.  The worst thing that will happen is
> that
>> you get a really lousy scan because you chose the wrong combination of
>> settings for that particular book.  The best thing that can happen is 
>> that
>> you learn your software and produce really excellent scans.
>>
>> So now I'll go through each group of settings one at a time, giving the
>> settings I use for the typical scan mentioned above.  Under each group,
> I'll
>> list the options available and then the settings that I use.
>>
>> 1.  General page:
>> A.  Interface language, English
>> B.  Show image during scanning, check box checked
>> C.  Show tips during recognition, check box not checked
>> D.  Open last batch at start-up, check box checked
>> E.  Adjust image to fit printable area while printing, not checked
>> F.  Show welcome dialogue at start-up, not checked
>> G.  Enable ABBYY community news channel, not checked
>> H.   Save button
>> I.  Load button
>> J.  Use defaults button
>> K.  Close button.
>> (Note:  For now, we'll do nothing with H through K.)
>>
>> 2.  View Page
>> A.  Appearance item, Uncertain character
>> B.  None button.
>> C.  Block frames width, 1
>> D.  Show black and white images in image window, not checked
>> E.  Show black and white images in zoom window, not checked
>> F.  Show zoom windows scroll bars, checked
>> G.  Show scale black and white images as gray, checked
>> H.  Highlight uncertain characters, checked
>> I.  Show nonprinted characters in window, not checked
>> J.  Switch to full page mode, checked.
>> K.  Drafter editor font size, 12
>> L.  Close button.
>>
>> 3.  Scan Open Image Page
>> A.  Scanner twain driver, Epson Twain 5 (of course needs to be set for
> your
>> scanner)
>> B.  Use FineReader interface, checked, (very important)
>> C.  Display options dialogue before scanning, not checked
>> D.  Scanner settings button (pressing enter here will open yet another
>> dialogue box, but one that is pretty important.  So press enter and here
> are
>> my settings)
>> I.  Image orientation, landscape
>> II.  Measure units, inches
>> III.  Paper size, letter
>> IV.  Brightness automatic, checked
>> V.  Pictures scanning mode, black and white pictures
>> VI.  Resolution, 300
>> VII.  Pause between pages, checked (and for some reason, this has to be
>> checked every time you scan no matter how you save the settings.)
>> VIII.  Edit box for seconds to pause, 5
>> IX.  Show this dialogue box before scanning, not checked
>> X.  Okay button
>> XI.  Cancel button
>> (Note; pressing okay after setting your options will return you to the
>> original dialogue box and back to the D. option of scanner settings
> button.
>> So now we'll resume going through the third group of options under scan
> open
>> image page.)
>> E.  Invert image, not checked
>> F.  Despeckle image, not checked
>> G.  Split dual pages, checked (very important)
>> H.  Detect image orientation during scanning, checked
>> I.  Convert color and gray images to black and white, not checked
>> J.  Ask for page number before adding page to batch, not checked
>> K.  Open image during scanning, checked
>> L.  Close button.
>>
>> 4.  Recognition Page
>> A.  Recognition language, English
>> B.  Edit languages
>> C.  Auto detect layout, checked
>> D.  Clear background noise, checked
>> E.  Look for bar codes, not checked
>> F.  Auto detect, checked
>> G.  One line of text per cell, not checked
>> H.  No merged cells in table, not checked
>> I.  Do not use user patterns, checked
>> J.  Pattern editor button
>> K.  Close button
>>
>> 5.  Check Spelling Page
>> A.  Stop at words with uncertain characters, checked
>> B.  Stop at words not found in dictionary, checked
>> C.  Stop at compound words, not checked
>> D.  Ignore words with digits and other non-alphabetic characters, checked
>> E.  Skip prompting for word forms (English dictionary only), checked
>> F.  Correct spaces before and after punctuation marks, checked
>> G.  Error display level set before recognition, standard
>> H.  View dictionaries button
>> I.  Browse button
>> J.  Close button
>>
>> 6.  Formatting Page
>> A.  Retain font and font size, checked
>> B.  Keep pictures, not checked
>> C.  Serif, Times New Roman
>> D.  Sans seriff, Arial
>> E.  Monospaced, Courier New
>> F.  Format settings button, (this is another important one, so press 
>> enter
>> and here's what you get)
>> I.  RTF docs word xml tab
>> II.  Default paper size, letter
>> III.  Automaticly increase paper size, checked
>> IV.  Keep page breaks, checked, (super-mega important)
>> V.  Keep line breaks, not checked (also pretty darn significant)
>> VI.  Retain text color, not checked
>> VII.  Remove optional hyphens, checked (another major time-saver)
>>
>> VIII.  Enable FineReader zoom Window in Microsoft Word 2003 only for word
>> xml format, not checked
>> IX.  With text color, not checked
>> X.  With background color, not checked
>> XI.  Save in Word 97 or later format, checked
>> XII.  JPEG, checked
>> XIII.  JPEG quality, 50
>> XIV.  Reduce picture resolution to, 150
>> XV.  Okay button
>> XVI.  Cancel button
>> (Note:  after making selections, press OK and you will be returned to the
>> regularly scheduled program which was the formatting page.)
>> G.  Close button
>>
>> At this point, use control-tab to take you back to the general page where
> we
>> started this odyssey.  Tab over until you get to save.  Press enter and
> name
>> this settings file, preferably something that will make sense when you 
>> try
>> to remember it later.  Then tab over to the nearest close button and 
>> press
>> enter.  You will now be ready to scan, or you can close out FineReader 
>> and
>> return later with the settings saved.
>>
>> When you open FineReader again and are ready to scan a book in two-page
> mode
>> with no extra frills, press alt, T and O to get back to the options under
>> the tools menu, control-tab until you land on general page, tab over to
> the
>> load button, press enter and type in the name of the settings file you
>> created, and press enter.  You will then need to control tab to the scan
>> open image page, tab to the scanner settings button, press enter, tab 
>> over
>> and check pause between pages and tab again to set the number of seconds
> to
>> 5.  Tab to close and press enter, tab to close again and press enter, and
>> then you're ready to scan.
>>
>> Taken all at once like this it might appear a lot to do, but it's really
> not
>> once you get the settings in place.  I've created similar settings for
>> one-page scanning for that occasional book that is too large for two-page
>> mode, and another one for retaining line breaks for the occasional book 
>> of
>> poetry or some other text where saving the line breaks might be 
>> important.
>> But the one I use the most is the two-page mode settings.  The other
>> frequent change I make is for paper size.  If the book really fills up 
>> the
>> scanner bed, then A4 is a better setting than letter, but I make this
>> adjustment for each scan.
>>
>> Control-shift-K starts continuous scanning and pressing space interrupts
> it.
>>
>> Control-shift-R starts the recognition process.
>>
>> When you're done with scanning and recognition, and it's time to save 
>> your
>> work, here's how to do it:
>>
>> Press alt and then F to get to the file menu.  Press E to go to the save
>> text as dialogue box.  This is a baby dialogue box compared to the 
>> options
>> one, so pressing tab will get you through it.  Set your options for 
>> saving
>> text as follows:
>>
>> 1.  Filename, type in what you want.  The default is Untitled0.
>> 2.  Save as type, rich text format RTF.  (This is crucial if for no other
>> reason than to keep the volunteers on this list happy!  <smile> 
>> Seriously
>> though, it is the best option and it is the second selection as you arrow
>> down the combo box.)
>> 3.  Save button
>> 4.  Cancel button
>> 5.  All pages, checked, this is the second option in this combo box.
>> 6.  File options, create a single file for all pages, checked, fourth
> option
>> in the combo box.
>> 7.  Retain layout, retain font and font size, checked, second option in
> the
>> combo box.
>> 8.  Keep pictures, not checked.
>> 9.  Open document after saving, not checked
>> 10.  Format settings button, this is a repeat of the format settings you
> set
>> in the earlier tools menu settings.  You can press space here to check
> your
>> settings, but it's really not necessary.
>> 11.  Save in, select whatever folder you choose for saving scans, I use 
>> my
>> ebooks.
>> 12.  List view, let's you select files or folders, but nothing to set.
>>
>> Once you've made the selections above, tab over to the save button and
> press
>> space to save.  Now you have a lovely scanned book in RTF to submit to
>> BookShare.  Once you've set these options in the save text as dialogue
> box,
>> they remain the same until you change them again, so in future, you only
>> have to put in the filename and tab over to save.
>>
>> Happy scanning!  I still say FineReader is the best scanning software out
>> there!  And remember, it's not wise to disagree with the Mistress of
>> FineReader!  <smile>
>>
>> Peace and Hope,
>>
>> Donna
>>
>>
>
>
>

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