Thanks, Susan. I'll try doing the work in Word and then changing to .rtf. I also have a message in to Freedom Scientific asking for their thoughts on this issue. They will probably suggest an upgrade--but I'm not against that. Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions. Sandi ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Lumpkin To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 5:13 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Help with Software, Please! Hi Sandi, We use OpenBook 9 and save our files in Word 2010, only converting them to .rtf files when we're going to submit the book to Bookshare! Hope this works for you! Good luck! From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sandi Ryan Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 12:54 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Help with Software, Please! Hi Valerie and Mary, I appreciate your help and comments. First, Mary, how are paragraphs designated with the other recognition engines? I was pretty sure the blank line (which is in the print book) was what Kurzweil also gave me when I used it a couple of generations ago. Can you recommend a better recognition engine? I can upgrade Openbook, but am not terribly inclined to purchase something else expensive for a volunteer job. I love scanning and proofing, but I'm a retired person. So if you know of a different way to handle this, I'm open to it--as long as it doesn't break the bank! *smile* The issue with the paragraphs has to do with scanning the book and saving it as an RTF. I'm pretty sure that, before I save the file the first time, all the paragraph marks are there and everything's good. But I checked my scanned file last night, and now, whether I bring it up in Openbook or Word, 2003 or 2007 (I have both) it has still stripped the paragraph marks. This seems to be a function of saving the file in RTF. Openbook warns me that "Saving the file in this format may" strip some of the characteristics--but who would think that would mean paragraphs?! For my own purposes I've always just used Openbook in its own format or in Word, which leaves paragraphs in. Woud it work to save it as a Word file, then convert it to RTF? Just wanted to let you both know I'm still working on this and trying to come up with an answer! I so enjoyed doing my first two books--and I hate that it's made so much work for you, Valerie! Sandi ----- Original Message ----- From: Mayrie ReNae To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 10:43 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Help with Software, Please! Hi Valerie, Yes, I've noticed that scans done with OpenBook have a blank line between paragraphs too. I never found this to be a problem, except for the times when I'd like to be able to easily see where white space between scenes should have been in the book, and can't always find this in scans done with OpenBook. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly as I think it's been three years since I proofread a scan created by OpenBook. That's a long, long time technologically speaking, and things often change for the better. Hope you all can figure out how to fix the paragraphing issues. Perhaps a different recognition engine would do a more accurate job? Just a thought. Happy scanning and proofreading everyone! Mayrie ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Valerie Maples Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 2:56 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Help with Software, Please! Thanks, Mayrie! I knew you could help her with the ASCII replacement. The odd thing is it isn't all paragraphing missing, but every page has some problem and some pages have no paragraphs. In this particular case, I have little reason to believe it is the book since it is a clear, high quality print. When paragraphing is present, there is a blank line between paragraphs, something I think routine in Open Book and easily stripped. Valerie On Aug 6, 2011, at 4:02 PM, Mayrie ReNae wrote: Hi Valerie and Sandi, Thanks, Valerie, for clarifying exactly what you're seeing. All right quotes is very weird, but is consistent with what I used to see when proofreading scans done with OpenBook. I have no idea why OpenBook does that particular odd thing. Here is the find and replace sequence for replacing smart quotes with regular quotes, Sandi. I should have included it in my last note. Just in case turning off the autoformatting doesn't fix the problem completely. I'm including instructions for removing both opening and closing quotes just for the sake of thoroughness. I suggest running both steps, just in case it helps, and because it only takes about five extra seconds to do the extra step. I hope it helps and that you can figure out why all of your paragraph marks disappeared. I've never seen that before except with Kurzweil 3000. Good luck, and happy scanning and proofreading! See below for the instructions for find and replace in Word to replace smart quotes with regular quotes. Mayrie Convert smart quotes to standard quotes To Remove Smart Quotes Using Find And Replace: In the find box type: ^0147 In the replace box type: ^0034 Replace all. In the find box type: ^0148 In the replace box type: ^0034 Replace all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Valerie Maples Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 1:44 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Help with Software, Please! And just for everyone's information, aside from many (not all) pages missing many or all paragraph breaks and the only right quotes appearing so grammar check told her to eliminate the preceding space, Sadi did an amazing job for first projects, including being a real sweetheart and moving pagination to the top to help me navigate easier. So glad to have another enthusiastic scanner, so hope someone can help her determine if there is a setting to better retain paragraphing in particular. also, if someone (Mayrie?) can give Sandi the ASCII code for right curly to be substituted with straight quotes in a global find and replace before she edits, that would be helpful. Odd that they all appeared to be right quotes. Thanks, folks! Valerie On Aug 6, 2011, at 2:32 PM, Sandi Ryan wrote: Hi Group, I have received excellent feedback from my first two scanned books, and they contained a problem I'd rather not perpetuate. Somewhere in the process, my document was stripped of paragraph breaks. I promise I did not do this with keystrokes or menus. Also, the quotation marks are curly rather than straight. I use Word 2007 and OpenBook 8 at this point for scanning and correction. I scanned in RTF, and the text came out really well. What is happening to cause this problem? If you can help, please either reply to this message or e-mail me off-list atsjryan2@xxxxxxxxxx Thanks much. Sandi