[WEB4LIB] scanning documents, retaining searchability . . .

[Patrick Huey]

We use the DjVu format a lot here - it has good compression and does the 
OCR behind the scenes. You can find some open source tools at:

DjVu Zone - http://www.djvuzone.org/
DjVuLibre - http://djvu.sourceforge.net/

Or you can take a look at the commercial products produced by LizardTech 
(http://www.lizardtech.com/).

We use it a lot for large maps and for reports that have a mixture of 
maps, images, and text. The file sizes always seem to beat Acrobat, but 
we've had problems with users not getting the plug-in.

You can see some here: http://njedl.rutgers.edu/njdlib/. Most of our 
documents are print (not digitally) born.

-Patrick


-- 
Patrick Huey
Web Developer, NJEDL
Scholarly Communication Center, Alexander Library
Rutgers, the State University of NJ
e-mail: phuey at rci.rutgers.edu



Jennifer K. Snow wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a question regarding Adobe Acrobat Capture and other comparable
> applications.  Our Special Collections and Archives department would
> like to scan print documents and then search them.  Converting a Word
> document to PDF retains its searchability, but simply scanning a
> document does not give one that option.  I have been researching
> software that will accomplish our needs.  Unfortunately the reviews of
> Adobe Acrobat Capture have not been stellar.  Does anyone have any
> suggestions of alternative applications that might meet our needs?
> 
> Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Jennifer Snow
> Educational Technology Center
> Bowdoin College
> 
> 
> 
>