Scott Alfter wrote: ...
I've recently figured out a method that uses freely-available tools to scan images and text and store them into PDFs that can be handled by any number of programs (Adobe Reader, Preview.app, KPDF, etc.) Starting with a high-resolution, high-bit-depth scan (600 dpi, 24 bpp), text and image blocks are identified and written to separate files. These files are then combined to form a one-page PDF of reasonably small size. PDFs can be concatenated to create multi-page documents that are easily printed or OCR'd.
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I've put up the scripts that I'm using here, as well as instructions for their use: http://alfter.us/files/docscanscripts.tar.gz (10K)
Scott:It's cool that you have managed to do color hires and B&W text, and the size is much better. I also like the fact that it is in a PDF format so anyone can reproduce the page content.
I've been looking for a similar soultion except that I WANT the OCR to happen before 'the merge' as you describe it. I want TEXT in the file for indexing and searchability which can't be done with the text as a picture.
I look forward to looking at your scripts and seeing if I can get the OCR to happen so it meets my ideal PDF. Text and graphics that look remarably close to the original layout.
Thankx, Ed