Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
How much money have you had to spend in equipment and software in order to permit you to do this? That's a serious question - I'd be interested to know how much it all cost. Not the PC, but the other stuff - the scanner, software, etc.
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Used scanner from Craigslist: $125. (I caught a bargain. Similar scanners are commonly available at eBay for ~$250, which is is what I expected to pay for it.)
I get to cheat for this--I work at a place that has high-speed scanners; I have for many years. I have access to scanners that most people never will; my home scanner is a convenience to avoid coming into work on the weekends to borrow the equipment. I can also use the paper-cutter at work; chopping off the spines is a matter of seconds, not hours with a ruler & razor.
Software--Acrobat Professional 7: $250 or so at ebay.
FineReader Pro: 10 is available new-in-box at ebay for $150 or less.
FR 6 is available for GBP 6.99. 8 seems to be bid-able starting at about $45, but there aren't many of any of the older versions available. (I use FR 7.0 Pro. I know I don't want to upgrade to 8; it loses some imaging options. I'm nervous about upgrading to 9 or 10 because I doubt that's fixed, although I suspect the OCR quality would be better.)
PixEdit: I have *no idea* if this is even available for purchase anymore. It was insanely expensive when I got it as part of a closing package from a job that was shutting down ("hey, we have six licenses, and we're closing this office entirely... here, have a box, a disc, and some installation instructions.")
I also do stuff with Photoshop, but I could do all of that with GIMP if I had to. (I could probably, with a bit of effort, do my Pixedit work with GIMP.)
I'm aware it's not a cheap package of software. Cheap flatbed scanners are as little as $20, but scanning with those is about 2 pages/minute, *if* you get the settings all perfect.
I get a lot of other use out of Acrobat Pro; I edit documents & ebooks. I get limited other use out of FineReader, mostly related to "download scans of legal docs, OCR them, and post the text somewhere other than scribd." (US court documents are all in the public domain.)