what's the cheapest way to get document into a computer (scan, cam?)

[joelwenzel]

Hello,

I am interested in developing a product that requires a way to get documents into a computer. As far as I can tell, this leaves two options...a scanner or a webcam. Are there other options?

I am interested in the cheapest solution. Also, I am fairly familiar with electronics. I think I could potentially buy certain components and build the hardware myself. The key is that I need something extremely cheap. It should also be fast (which has me leaning towards webcams)

Thank you so much for your help.

 

[geekwanabe]

Hello to you,


I would go with the scaner idea, but the cheapist way would most likely 40$ for a cheap digital camera and take pictures of it and use a usb convert plug to put them on ur computer


really hope i helped,
geekwannabe

 

[BaudKarma]

A lot depends on the volume of documents you'll be dealing with, and what kind of resolution you need for the documents. A cheap webcam might have the lowest dollar outlay, but you probably won't be able to read any fine print on the document. Also, you'll have an image of not only the document, the whatever background is behind it.

The amount of time it takes to process the document could be important too. If you're dealing with hundreds of them, you'll want something that works quickly, or that can automate the document handling. If it's only a few documents, you can probably handle them manually.





I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[zeitghost]

Please do not cross post, it irritates people...

 

[tf1]

If you need to edit the text of whatever is scanned, you must use a scanner with an OCR (optical charatcer recognition) utility. USB scanner start quite cheap too. However, as BaudKarma recommends, if you need to scan a large number of documents, then you'll need something more powerful with a sheet feeder so that you can batch scan 25 or 50 documents at a time. For the really busy office, there are now scanners that will automatically scan double-sided-documents too.

I would not recommend a WebCam as they are usually very low resolution (to keep the image size down for transmission). A digital camera would be better though.

Regards: tf1

 

[Freestone]

Cross-post with thread602-1098956

 

[garebo]

I noticed last week someone started crossposting, he posted the same thing in about 4 places. I made a comment on one place but he ignored it and others didnt help out.
I think we need to start telling people to stop doing this. Its getting very annoying!!!

I joined this site because of the high quality, hate to see it slip. Still, we dont have the foul language and rudeness common to others so we are still a cut above!
But we do need to point these things out and not let them go as others see it as a sign that its ok, dont stop to use common sense. Then things go downhill from there, so lets stop it now.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[tf1]

I agree. I like the overall experience of Tek-Tips and the conveninece of a short email to say there's a reply, etc. And the absense of shouting and flames too!

Regards: tf1

 

[garebo]

By the way, joelwenzel, not picking on you. Its just that lately there has been a few people doing cross-posting.
I know there is a current one that is in 4 places.
This is a pain you know where but the worst part is that there are answers in 4 different places. If someone has the same problem they wont get all the answers as they wont know the answers may be in 4 different places, or maybe 2 of the 4, like that anyway.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[joelwenzel]

TO be honest, I don't really see what the big deal is. Maybe its because I don't post very frequently but I like the idea of cross posting. I mean, I get views from two different groups. You guys here might have a different background and opinions then people on the other forum. Furthermore, if cross posting really bothers you, just don't read the second post. But I'm probably biased since I am the one doing the original post Maybe I would be annoyed too if I frequented the posts here and saw copied post. Guess I will avoid the idea next time.

However, it turns out crossposting was a benefit here in this case too. Someone mentioned about using a digital camera instead of a webcam. I didn't know digital cameras could be so cheap but it looks like it might be something worth looking into.

 

[joelwenzel]

You guys talk about OCR a lot. Is it not possible to use that with an image? I didn't think that it required a scanner.

 

[tf1]

Yes you can but for good OCR, you need a really good image scan. A digital camera really isn't designed to take quality images of a page of text. A cheap scanner will out-perform a cheap digital camera for OCR work. Besides, I don't know of any digital camera that comes with OCR: most scanners - even budget scanners have some sort of OCR software bundled.


Regards: tf1

 

[joelwenzel]

I should probably mention that I am looking at handwriting. Can OCR handle that? I have a pocket pc which coverts handwritten images to text extremely well.

 

[tf1]

Windows XP and its variants have a handwriting recognition utility built in that does seems to work quite well - though both you and it need to go through a learning curve. I'm not sure about it 'reading' a scanned page though. I'm sure that standard OCR won't read handwriting.

Re-reading your original question and now learning that you mean handwritten documents, the answer is you can't so it - at least not cheap.


Regards: tf1

 

[BaudKarma]

tf1 is correct. OCR has problems even with a good quality scanned image from a printed document. Anything that degrades image quality is going to give the OCR fits.

As for handwriting reognition... it can be done, but it's not easy or cheap. Last I checked, handwriting recognition software was fairly pricey. Also, the software has to be trained to recognize the handwriting of each individual who uses the system. You can't, for example, take 100 handwritten surveys from 100 different people and scan them into text.

I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.