OCR Freeware - Download Free OCR Software

I have been explaining how to edit a scanned document and what is required. Basically, you need software to translate the scanned document into an editable text document. In my last post about popular OCR software, I shared some possible OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software solutions. These are all highly recommended solutions, but they come with a price. So where do you find OCR freeware solutions?

OCR Freeware

The following are some links to download OCR freeware.

• http://www.simpleocr.com
• http://www.gnu.org/software/ocrad/ocrad.html

One thing to say is that these OCR freeware solutions may not do the job you are looking for them to do. Optical Character Recognition can work on many different levels. The general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. If you need something more advanced, you might want to check out OmniPage 16. However, for basic scanned document editting, the first link, SimpleOCR, should work just fine.

Another thing to mention is that the above are wonderful OCR freeware programs, some of the paid ones I listed in my last post about popular OCR software will offer free 30-day trials. Check those out too.

Popular Optical Character Recognition Programs

UPDATE: Nuance has released there latest version of OmniPage 16 OCR Software. OmniPage 16 is considered the world's leading OCR software solution. Check out my OmniPage 16 review.

In my last entry, I explained how to edit a scanned document. To refresh your memory on how to edit a scanned document, there is no way to edit a scanned document without the use of software that has Optical Character Recognition capabilities. With these OCR capabilties, software can transform text from a scanned document or image into an editable text document.

I did some searching and the common OCR software solutions for editting a scanned document are:

• http://www.abbyy.com
• http://www.nuance.com
• http://www.irislink.com

Most of these software solutions for editting a scanned document are a bit pricey. You are looking at a couple hundred dollars. The cheapest solution seems to be Readiris Pro Home Edition (approx. $130) from irislink.com.

I hope this has given you some insight on how to edit a scanned document. Best of luck to you!

How to Edit a Scanned Document

Let's look at how to edit a scanned document. As explained in the previous post, scanned documents are real life documents scanned into digital format. The common scanned document would probably be text scanned into an image format.

Say you had a typed up piece of paper and you wanted to get it on your computer in digital format and then edit the scanned document. You could use a scanner and scan it onto your computer. That would produce an image of the document, but how do you edit the scanned document image?

How to Edit a Scanned Document

The truth is that there is no way to extract, insert, or delete the text from the scanned document image without the use of special software with OCR capabilities. Meaning, you cannot simply select text from a scanned document because it is an image. You can edit the image in an image editor, but you cannot extract, insert, or delete text in the scanned document. So to go back to "OCR", OCR stands for "Optical Character Recognition". OCR can transform letters from a scanned image into a text document.

The solution on how to edit a scanned document is simple--use OCR software. I wish there was an easier way around editting a scanned document, but if you have a lot of scanned documents you have to edit, you will definitely get your money's worth from an OCR software solution.

One really great piece of OCR software is OmniPage 17. It's one of the latest up-to-date solutions out there today. You can check it out here. You can also see a review of it I wrote here.

What are Scanned Documents?

Scanned documents are simply real life documents that have been scanned and made available in digital format. A common scanned document would be a photograph that has been scanned into the computer with the use of an image scanner. Another example of a scanned document would be a product user manual or brochure that has been scanned into an Adobe Acrobat Reader format (.PDF).

Scanned documents allow us great flexibility. With the use of the internet, we can transfer different digitally scanned documents to other surfers in the blink of an eye. Scanned documents of Early American Documents can be found on the internet. The Consitution and the Declaration of Indepence have even been scanned into digital format.