[bksvol-discuss] Re: paperback tip submitted
- From: "Scott Blanks" <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 13:06:48 -0700
Pratik,
While reading your tip, I noticed that you used the term "trade paperback". As
I understand it, this refers to a paperbound book which generally is the same
size as the hardcover edition. Strangely, I've never scanned a single trade
paperback--all of my scans have been of mass market editions, books which are
smaller, and very often contain a lower grade of paper. Do you have any
alternate suggestions for mass market books? Or was this suggestion meant to
refer to all paperbound editions?
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: Pratik patel
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 12:23 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] paperback tip submitted
Hello all,
Following E's suggestion, I've submitted the following paperback settings tip
to jake's site. HTH
Pratik
Scanning Paperback Books With Kurzweil 1000
If you've ever scanned paperback books-also frequently known as Trade Paper
books, you will know that the print quality on such books can range from
mediocre to excellent. Sometimes, the quality may even differ within books as
you move from page to page. The question becomes how you can scan these
paperback books so that your optical character recognition (OCR) results are
consistent, requiring less effort to edit and saving you time.
The section below outlines some scanning tips that you can use with Kurzweil
1000 (V. 9 and above) to make sure that you get the best results.
There is one thing that you should understand before following these steps:
While a few users have confirmed the findings that are outlined below, the
results often vary based on your scanner and the drivers provided by your
scanner manufacturer.
Please also note that you are about to make changes to the default settings
provided by Kurzweil 1000, you should become very comfortable with Kurzweil's
settings. They provide an extraordinary control over your scanning,
recognition, and reading environment. The excellent manual created by Kurzweil
Educational Systems (Help/Open the Manual) will enable you to gain a thorough
understanding of each setting, its corresponding values, and its effects on the
environment.
Before you begin:
Before you begin making changes to your settings, it is always a good idea to
make sure that you have a backup copy of your original settings. This will
allow you to go back and restore settings if something goes wrong. Use the
following steps to create a backup for your settings.
1. If Kurzweil 1000 is not already running, run the program by pressing
CTRL+ALT+k
2. Go to the "Folder" menu by pressing ALT+l
3. Use the down arrow key once to get to "New" or press letter n
4. Kurzweil 1000 will ask you to enter the name of the new folder you
wish to create. Type "settings" or "backup settings," depending on your
preference.
5. Press enter. Your folder will be created under "c:\documents and
settings\user\my documents\Kurzweil educational systems" where "user" is your
login name. The newly-created folder is located on the same level as the
"general" folder
6. Once you've completed creating the folder for your backup settings,
go to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
7. Use your up and down arrow keys to go to the "backup settings" menu
item or press letter b
8. Kurzweil 1000 will ask you to choose the folder where your backup
settings should be saved. Get to the list of folders that Kurzweil 1000
presents by pressing the tab and the shift key. Use the right and left arrow
keys to open and close the tree items. Use the up and the down arrow keys to
move to previous and next items. Get to the folder your created to hold your
backup settings and press enter.
Now You're ready to make changes to your settings. There are two series of
steps you'll take and compare results to find the best OCR settings. Make sure
you have your paperback book handy.
1. If Kurzweil 1000 is not already running, run the program by pressing
CTRL+ALT+k
2. Go to the "scan" menu by pressing ALT+s
3. Use your up and down arrow keys to reach the "optimize scan" item
then press enter or press letter s. You will be in the "optimize scan" dialog
box
4. You will land on the threshold optimization item. By default, this
choice is set to "optimize." If not, press the space bar key until Kurzweil
1000 says "optimize."
5. Press the tab key to get to "scanner brightness" and press the space
bar key until Kurzweil 1000 says "optimize"
6. Press the tab key once again to get to "minimum brightness level."
Leave this option to "20," which is automatically entered for you. Change it
to "20" if the number is something else.
7. Press the tab key once again to get to "maximum brightness level."
Leave this option to "80," which is automatically entered for you. Change it
to "80" if the number is something else
8. Press the tab key to get to "resolution" and press the space bar key
until Kurzweil 1000 says "optimize"
9. Press the tab key to get to "speckle removal" and press the space
bar key until Kurzweil 1000 says "optimize"
10. Press the tab key once again to get to "text quality" and press the
space bar key until Kurzweil 1000 says "do not optimize"
11. Press the tab key to get to "recognition engine" and press the space
bar key until Kurzweil 1000 says "optimize"
12. Press the tab key until you get to the "OK" button. Do not press the
space bar key or enter key yet
13. Take your paperback book and open it to a random page
14. Place the book on the scanner with only one page on the scanner platen.
Make sure that both pages are not on the scanner. You may need to make sure
that you press down on the book spine in order to allow the scanner to see the
entire page
15. Returning to your keyboard, press the space bar key to start the
optimization process. You will need to hold the book in position for several
minutes for the optimization process to complete. The time may vary depending
on your scanner model. Kurzweil 1000 will announce when the optimization
process is complete. You can relax and lay your book aside for a few moments
16. Press the tab key several times to review the optimization settings and
press enter to accept the settings as suggested by Kurzweil 1000
17. Go to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
18. Use the down arrow key until you get to "recognition" item and press
enter or press letter c
19. you will land on "column identification." If Kurzweil 1000 says "on,"
press space bar to turn off automatic column recognition
20. Press the tab key then press the space bar key until Kurzweil 1000
announces "two pages will be recognized per scan."
21. Once again press the tab key and the space bar key until Kurzweil 1000
announces "recognition of light text on a dark background is disabled." Unless
you plan to scan the book's dust jacket or the front cover, you will not need
to return and turn this feature on for paperbacks
22. Press the tab key to hear the "Speckle removal" status. For now you
should leave this setting as is. If you recall, this was one of the settings
that was optimized by the "optimize scan" tool earlier
23. Press the tab key several times until you reach the "partial columns"
settings. Press the space bar key until Kurzweil 1000 announces "ignore"
24. Press tab to get to "suspicious regions" and press space bar until
Kurzweil 1000 announces "ignored." (K1000 version 10 only)
25. Press tab to get to "blank pages" and press space bar until Kurzweil
1000 announces "kept"
26. Leave the recognition engine and the language setting to their default.
Press enter to accept these changes
27. Go to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
28. Press the up or down arrow keys to get to the "save settings" option
and press enter or press letter v
29. In the resulting dialog box, type "current" and press enter. The
settings that you have just modified are now saved in a settings file named
"current." This will give you a chance to retrieve them in the future if you
find that these settings produce the best results
30. Pick up the paperback book once again and go to a random page.
Preferably, this page should not be the page that was used to create the
optimized scan results earlier
31. Place the book on your scanner. This time, you can scan both pages at
once. Ensure that you hold the spine down to give the scanner a chance to view
all the contents
32. Press the scan key (F9) to start scanning the page
33. Once the scan has complete, turn to the next page and continue
scanning, all the time making sure the hold the spine down
34. Continue this process until you have scanned 5 times. You should have
scanned a total of ten pages as you were scanning two pages at once
35. Wait to have the recognition catch up-until you have ten pages of text
36. Go to the "tools" menu (ALT+o)
37. Press the up arrow key to get to "rank spelling" and press enter or
press letter I. Rank spelling will tell you the percentage of spelling errors
it encountered and will also tell you what percent of the document-the ten
pages you scanned-is without errors
38. Note down the spelling rate percentage that is given by Kurzweil 1000
and press escape to exit the dialog
39. Close the file by pressing F4, answering no to the save dialog
The second set of steps will go through the process of comparing recognition
results based on a series of settings that have been shown to work well with
paperback books most of the time.
1. You should still be in Kurzweil 1000. The "current" settings saved
earlier should still be loaded. Go to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
2. Navigate to the "scanning" item by using the arrow keys and pressing
enter or by pressing letter s
3. In the resulting dialog box, press tab twice to get to the
"threshold" setting
4. Press space bar repeatedly until you hear "grayscale"
5. Press tab three times to get to "scanner resolution." Press the
space bar key until Kurzweil 1000 announces "400 dots per inch"
6. Press enter to accept these changes and return to Kurzweil 1000
7. Return to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
8. Arrow down to the "recognition" option and press enter or press
letter C
9. Press the tab key four times until you get to the "speckle removal"
item. Press space bar until Kurzweil 1000 announces "disabled"
10. Press the tab key once again to get to "text quality" and press space
bar until you hear "normal"
11. Press tab five times to get to "recognition engine" setting. Press
space repeatedly to get to "FineReader Engine" 7 or 7.1. The FineReader engine
versions will differ in Kurzweil 1000 V. 10 and V. 9
12. Press enter to accept the changes you made
13. Return to the "settings" menu by pressing ALT+t
14. Press the up or down arrow keys to get to the "save settings" option
and press enter or press letter v
15. In the resulting dialog box, type "paperback" and press enter. The
settings that you have just modified are now saved in a settings file named
"paperback." This will give you a chance to retrieve them in the future if you
find that these settings produce the best results
16. Pick up the paperback book once again and go to the page where you
began your first scan. Preferably, this page should not be the page that was
used to create the optimized scan results earlier. You will be scanning the
same ten pages you scanned the first time to compare your results
17. Place the book on your scanner. You can scan both pages at once.
Ensure that you hold the spine down to give the scanner a chance to view all
the contents
18. Press the scan key (F9) to start scanning the page
19. Once the scan has completed, turn to the next page and continue
scanning, all the time making sure the hold the spine down
20. Continue this process until you have scanned 5 times. You should have
scanned a total of ten pages as you were scanning two pages at once
21. Wait to have the recognition catch up-until you have ten pages of text
22. Go to the "tools" menu (ALT+o)
23. Press the up arrow key to get to "rank spelling" and press enter or
press letter I. Rank spelling will tell you the percentage of spelling errors
it encountered and will also tell you what percent of the document-the ten
pages you scanned-is without errors
24. Note down the spelling rate percentage that is given by Kurzweil 1000
and press escape to exit the dialog
25. Close the file by pressing F4, answering no to the save dialog
You will most probably find that your scan results for the second scan are
better than scans from the optimized settings. However you should go through
these steps each time you start scanning a new paperback to ensure that you
receive the best results. Now that you already have the "paperback" settings
saved, you need not go through the steps of defining these settings. You can
go to the "settings" menu and "load settings" for as many times as you need.
You may find the steps listed above a bit intimidating. The process of going
through these steps is not so work-intensive as it appears.
You can address any questions to me at pratikp1 + k1k at gmail dot com
Respectfully submitted by Pratik Patel
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