Best way to scan scifi and fantasy?

neonightrider · 01-25-2010, 07:04 PM

I have a bunch of science fiction and fantasy novels I would like to scan to make ebooks out of. However, due to the nature of the books, with lots of either made up or foreign words I can see most OCRs having a problem. Right now I only have an older flatbed scanner, so I plan on getting a new one. I just don't know what format to use. Would scanning into PDF be better, or is there an OCR that is better at handling this kind of stuff better then another?

jabberwock_11 · 01-25-2010, 07:19 PM

I know it would be a bit of a chore, but you could try adding the various words into your dictionary as they come up so that they will be recognized properly. I think most of the currently available software is going to at least flag unusual words as incorrect.

wayrad · 01-25-2010, 09:00 PM

I save my OCR jobs to Word format for further processing, and its search/replace function is excellent for cleaning up the type of error you mentioned. They're less common than you might think (at least with FineReader

), and the error is generally the same every time it occurs, so it's easy to fix.

01-25-2010, 07:04 PM	#1
neonightrider Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: none	Best way to scan scifi and fantasy? I have a bunch of science fiction and fantasy novels I would like to scan to make ebooks out of. However, due to the nature of the books, with lots of either made up or foreign words I can see most OCRs having a problem. Right now I only have an older flatbed scanner, so I plan on getting a new one. I just don't know what format to use. Would scanning into PDF be better, or is there an OCR that is better at handling this kind of stuff better then another?

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01-25-2010, 07:19 PM	#2
jabberwock_11 Addict Posts: 231 Karma: 1591305 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Savannah, GA USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2, Aluratek Libre Pro	I know it would be a bit of a chore, but you could try adding the various words into your dictionary as they come up so that they will be recognized properly. I think most of the currently available software is going to at least flag unusual words as incorrect.

01-25-2010, 09:00 PM	#3
wayrad Fanatic Posts: 551 Karma: 1121392 Join Date: May 2008 Location: USA Device: HTC One M8	I save my OCR jobs to Word format for further processing, and its search/replace function is excellent for cleaning up the type of error you mentioned. They're less common than you might think (at least with FineReader ), and the error is generally the same every time it occurs, so it's easy to fix.

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