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TEXT SCANNING - DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF LEGACY TEXT
If you have ever been faced with a large quantity of legacy
text material and been required to re-key it, you will probably
have wished that there was a more efficient alternative to
typing. Not only is typing a slow and error-prone process,
it simply isn't most people's idea of fun! Legacy text material
comes in many forms, principally out-of-print or previously
published books, as well as manuscripts from typewriters and
word processors, and magazine articles, academic journals
and newspaper cuttings. However, regardless of its form, three
factors are always present when dealing with legacy material;
it is
· existing printed material…
· unavailable in a digital form…
· whose content has some perceived value.
Legacy text material cannot be adequately edited, manipulated
or composed. Its value (represented by its content) is thus
"trapped" in an almost valueless container - a paper document.
In other words, your text is on paper, not on your computer,
which is where you need it.
Text scanning - an overview
In years past there was no viable alternative to typing
- the legacy text material would have to be re-keyed. Nowadays,
however, a significant alternative is provided by text scanning
technology, also known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
In essence, printed pages with regular business typefaces
can be scanned and analysed, the output being an editable
text file.
Text scanning technology is advancing at a startling pace,
much as every other area of business computing. Principally,
advances in both scanner design and recognition software have
converged to create dramatic improvements in the accuracy
afforded by text scanning.
The benefits of text scanning
Exceptional accuracy
At Absolutely Scantastic Ltd, we use high-performance Fujitsu
scanners for the majority of our text scanning projects, with
recourse to high-resolution Hewlett Packard graphics scanners
for jobs involving very small text. Coupled with the most
recent releases of leading text recognition packages, we usually
expect word accuracies of >98.5% on most good quality documents,
with >99.5% possible with ideal documents.
Exceptional speed
Our text scanning systems are between 10× and 100× faster
than any typist, depending on the work being undertaken. Obviously,
this can have a significant effect on the way in which our
clients can approach text acquisition projects.
Technical language not a problem
OCR does not slow down for specialist language as a human
typist would. It simply recognises individual characters and
clusters of characters. This is of particular benefit to publishers
who deal with medical, scientific or legal documents, since
they do not necessarily have to find keyboard staff experienced
in their field.
Large volumes of legacy text?
As indicated, the OCR process is inherently efficient, operating
orders of magnitude faster than human typists, even on small
jobs. However, the larger the volume of legacy material, the
better. As jobs increase in size, we are able to increase
our working efficiency in various ways, including:
· overnight or unattended processing;
· operating multiple scanners on a single job;
· simultaneous scanning and recognition.
Our clients
Absolutely Scantastic Ltd is currently one of the few text
scanning service providers in the United Kingdom, and our
experience in undertaking OCR projects for publishing companies
is considerable. Our list of clients reflects this expertise.
Existing clients cover a wide range of publishing genres,
from literary works (The Harvill Press), through military
memoirs and historical texts (Crécy Publishing Ltd and Compendium
Design & Production Ltd) and academic texts (Manchester University
Press, Yale University Press, and Oxford University Press)
to science textbooks (Blackwell Science Ltd and Isis Medical
Media Ltd) and technical and engineering handbooks (The Institution
of Civil Engineers and Thomas Telford Publishing).
Conclusion
If you have a large amount of previously printed text to
input into a computer, we would be delighted to hear from
you. We are always happy to scan samples of your material,
not only to demonstrate the accuracy of our systems, but also
our willingness to work closely with our clients. We always
discuss your requirements at length, ensuring that the scanned
text we deliver will suit your software application and be
as accurate as is possible. If your requirements for text
scanning are particularly large, we can also arrange to visit
you and review your legacy material for its scanning suitability.
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