jpg to xls

[splat78423]

how do i convert a jpg image to an xls document?

 

[ItIsHardToProgram]

I don't think you can convert it, but you can insert it, maybe if you pass through a program that can analyze images, but if you don't have any, they are usualy very costy.

 

[fumei]

You can't "convert" it. A JPG is a bitmap, an image. If you are asking about something that can be a Optical Scan Reader (OCR), then maybe google OCR. You would still likely need some other application that could take the OCR output and put it into Excel. Any OCR application that does a good job is, as ItsHardToProgram suggests, usually pricey. Although my knowledge of them is fairly out of date. ANY that I have ever used could only approach - maybe - 90% accuracy of data. ALL of them had to have serious attention paid to the output. There were always errors.

Gerry

 

[KenWright]

You can do it for nothing, but you need to convert the jpg to a bitmap first. The effects are pretty neat as well:-

This is just one program that's freely available

http://www.andypope.info/fun/bmpconvert.htm

Regards
Ken.................

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[fumei]

From that site:

If anybody find a real world use for either of the above please let me know.

Does that thing get data?

Gerry

 

[KenWright]

Depends how you mean. All it does is read the colours from the bitmap, and then generates an image by reproducing those colours from the Excel palette and then sizing the cells accordingly. It's actually quite spooky to look it once it's done, but it works real well. Must be 56 colours or less though.

Regards
Ken.............

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[splat78423]

thats not gonna work for what I need but I do appreciate the advice thus far. What I have is a hard copy of an excel spreadsheet that was faxed to my office. One of the users wants a copy of the fax loaded into her excel so she can update the spreadsheet as she needs down the road. I fear that converting it may be impossible. I might just have to tell the user to have the people that faxed the document to email her a copy of it in an xls format. It is dissapointing though that I cant scan a letter (like an electric bill or something for example) and import it into word or excel in order to alter the text.

thanks for the help guys

 

[splat78423]

What about scanning software? Is there scanning software around that will allow me to "scan into word"? From that point I can convert it into an xls table.....

 

[BenRowe]

Is it possible they could email that spreadsheet to you rather than faxing? If not, if you have Acrobat you can open the jpg in Acrobat, which converts it to a pdf and then you can OCR the pdf. My office uses OmniPage, which does a great job of recognizing text from a pdf.

 

[macropod]

Hi splat,

Your penultimate post indicates this has nothing to do with jpegs at all! You can't expect much help if you mislead people as to what your real needs are.

In this case, you've got a hard copy of a worksheet and you want to replicate it in Excel. You could use OCR software - any decent package can at least create a table layout for Word that you could then copy and paste into Excel. However, you're still going to have to check every entry carefully - OCR processing is not 100% reliable, especially with faxes and the like that tend to be second-generation copies with various unwanted artifacts on them. By the time you're done, you'll likely have done nearly as much work as typing the lot from scratch - maybe more.

My recommendation: get a copy of the original data from the source, or type it up.

Cheers

[MS MVP - Word]

 

[fumei]

This is exactly what I was saying in my post. The person wants DATA...so getting colors from the bitmap is useless.

Ken, I would reiterate the line from that web site. pretty...I guess, but it is useless. You can bring a jpg image into Excel anyways. So what that you can do it by cell. It is still colors and NO DATA. So I really don't know what "works well" means. PLUS, how many images are you using that are 56 colors or less? Hmmmm? Although....I grant you, it IS kind of cool, in a extraneous sort of way.

Yes, you can get OCR, yes, it works, and YES it is not anywhere near 100% and YES you have to go over the whole thing very very carefully. So NO...forget about scanning a faxed spreadsheet into Excel so you can edit it.

Pointless.

Gerry