OCR using MacTiger (for Cyrillic)

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows you to take type-written or printed material and, via the scanner, import it as text into the computer. The text can then be used for a variety of purposes, such as word processing and publishing applications. Given the recent popularity of converting printed materials to on-line publications, OCR can prevent the need for excessive amounts of re-typing. MacTiger is an OCR system that recognizes texts in Russian, while other OCR systems (such as OmniPage Pro do not).

Using MacTiger (on Mellon One in the FDS) for OCR:

1. Turn on the scanner. Remember that for opaque (non-transparent) originals it is only necessary to turn on the switch on the base of the scanner; the switch on the lid is only used to provide backlighting for transparencies.
2. To use MacTiger you must first scan the text in (In the following instructions, we'll tell you how to do this using OmniPage Pro, but you can use any scanning program which will allow you to save in PICT format).
3. Start OmniPage Pro. It can be opened from the "Applications" folder on your hard drive, or the "Mellon Applications" folder. Now look for the "Scanning" software.
4. When the program opens, a toolbar should appear (it is recognizable by a button on the left with the word "AUTO" written in blue). If it doesn't, you can turn it on but selecting "Show Toolbar" from the "Window" menu.
5. First acquire the image - that is, scan the original document into the computer as a graphic. Click the "Scan Image" button on the toolbar. OmniPage will now scan the image.
6. After OminPage has finished scanning the image, you can save it as a file to be opened in MacTiger. To do this:
• Click "Save As" from under the "File" menu.
• Change to an appropriate folder--such as your personal "User" folder, your NetWare Home folder, or a floppy disk you've insterted.
• Type a file name for the text in the name box.
• Choose the "PICT" file type from the drop-down menu.
• Click "OK."
7. You can now quit OmniPage Pro (by choosing "Quit" from the "File" menu) if you wish.
8. Start MacTiger, again located in the "Applications" or "Mellon Applications" folder, under "Multimedia" or "Scanning Software".
9. From the "File" menu select "Open" and point to your "PICT" file and click "Open".
10. Under the "OCR" menu select "Language" and designate Russian.
11. In the "Font" menu, from the "Text" menu select "Recognize and Edit".
12. After MacTiger completes the process, from the "Edit" menu choose "Select All".
13. From the "Font" menu change the font to Cyrillic II, ER Kurier MACINTOSH, ER Univers MACINTOSH, or any other Macintosh Cyrillic font.
14. Now the text should be legible, the blue highlited areas are sections where the program has questioned. By clicking on these areas, the corresponding area from the text image is highlighted yellow.
15. To edit the text: change your keyboard to Russian and you can edit from there.
16. You can now save in either TEXT, RTF, or MacTiger ("native") format.


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