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78
C
8: C
I
T
W
OCR
HAPTER
ONVERTING
TEMS TO
EXT
ITH
W
OCR
HAT IS
OCR is the computer's way of recognizing that a picture of an "S" is
really the letter S, that the picture of a "W" is really the letter W, and so
on for each letter's picture in a scanned item.
The OCR application looks at each letter on a page, and if it recognizes
the letter's shape converts it into the appropriate text character. When
the analysis of the page is complete, the OCR application puts the text
characters onto a page in about the same format as the pictures of text
on the original scanned item.
The page is now a document containing text that a word-processing
application can recognize. You can then edit the text as you normally
would when word-processing a document.
The process is not always perfect. If the item contains smudges or
handwritten notes, the OCR application tries to analyze them but, of
course, is not always able to make a suitable match. For that reason, you
should carefully check the converted document to correct any mistakes
that the OCR application makes. You should also start with as clean as
document as possible, such as by scanning at a higher resolution.
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