Chapter 4: Scanning Documents
There are four very important issues to consider when scanning documents for transcription. They are:
· The scanning hardware
· The scanning software
· The word processing software
· The process of translating from text to braille
Scanning Hardware
The hardware you choose to use will affect the physical ease of scanning documents. If you are scanning books or magazines, or oddly-shaped pages, you will do better to have a flat-bed or combo scanner; if you are scanning unbound sheets of letter-sized paper, then a sheet-fed scanner should suit you.
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Scanning Software
Apart from dealing with the physical act of scanning documents, scanning software is the most important element of scanning for transcription to braille. The reason for this is that a scanner simply takes a picture of a printed page (rather like a fax or copy machine). The software analyzes the page and tries to make sense of it. The resulting electronic file is what affects the extra formatting issues you will have when you bring the scanned document into DBT.
Just about any scanning software can read the characters on a page with relative accuracy. What the software does in terms of formatting should matter to you. If the software makes the text look good on a printed 8½” x 11” page, that’s great. However, if it does this in such a way as requires you to apply new styles, take out hard returns, remove tabs or spaces that were used to place text on the printed page, etc., you will have to do an awful lot of extra formatting work!
Scanning Into MS Word
One of the easiest ways to deal with scanning documents is to scan them into MS Word. I don’t recommend using a “Quick Scan” feature, or scanning directly into Word, because you won’t be able to control what the software is doing if you use one of these features. Due to the fact that it isn’t enough for the text to LOOK right on the printed page, you should use your scanning software to determine what is text, what are graphics, etc. Once you have determined these zones (and you may very well have to set these zones manually, rather than allowing the software to do it), and proofread the actual text, tell your software to save the document page(s) as an MS Word document, with styles if possible. From MS Word, you can run a spell-check for further accuracy, and apply the MS Word styles, replacing the scanner styles with styles that DBT will recognize. Please note: By default, TextBridge Pro and OmniPage Pro save the document as an “rtf” document — not an MS Word document (even though they save the document with the “doc” extension). Therefore, YOU MUST ENTER THE MS WORD PROGRAM AND SAVE THE FILE AS AN MS WORD DOCUMENT.
Which Software Should I Use?
At printing, the most effective scanner, with use of styles and easy definition of zones, was either TextBridge Pro version 9.0 or OmniPage Pro version 9.0 or later. Please keep in mind that this recommendation is based upon personal opinion, and subject to change based upon updates to the software. The best thing to do is to try out different software for yourself.
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Here’s the Key:
Get to know your scanning software, whatever you decide to use. Don’t expect it to do all the work for you, because it can’t. However, you can change settings to make scanning easier, and perform manual tasks, which get easier with practice. The only way to reach a point where you can do all of that easily is to know the software.
Scanning Into HTML
In many cases, the scanning software will use HTML instructions which visually format the document; for this reason, scanning to HTML is not usually the best answer. However if you think that you might benefit by using this method, by all means give it a try — there are always exceptions!
Scanning Into ASCII
When you scan into ASCII, you are removing almost all of the formatting information. This means that you will have to reapply all formatting from within DBT. If you find this easier than letting another software program do it for you, scan into ASCII. However, in most cases you can save yourself a great deal of time by allowing a software program to do the work for you.
Summing Up
While scanning hardware and software can do a lot of the “grunt work” for you, currently there doesn’t appear to be any program that can automate character recognition AND proper formatting for braille. The best answer is to learn the software you are using, and to use it to its best advantage.