OK, scanners don't technically print. You aren't technically getting the most out of your scanner right now, so I guess you will have to forgive me. Think about it, what do you actually do with your scanner?
I will give you 10-1 odds it's just a one-trick pony for you. You use it to capture images, don't you? You've captured Fluffy at the local dog park, Jimmy's picture with great-aunt whatshername, the trip to Sea World in '81. What if there's more? What if you could harness the power of your scanner to save you huge amounts of time and money at home and work?
You can, because I've done it. In fact, last week, I saved my company 200 hours of labor. Even paying minimum wage(which we weren't), that brings the total saved to over 00. At first glance, this figure doesn't line up with basic math. x 200 = 00, not 00. How did I do it? The answer lies in economic theory, and a really old technology.
Opportunity cost is a basic economic theory which calculates not only how much the visible costs are, but what it costs you not to do something else. The most common illustration is a college education. If you pay ,000 a year in visible costs, the cost of not working a full time job could be running you ,000 in hidden costs. Thus, the total cost of a college education is actually ,000 a year. The same goes for saving money. Not would you save your company 00 in visible costs, by implementing the strategy I did, you may have made them an additional 00 by using that time in a more productive manner. Now, you can see why I call it printing money.
The technology I used to get these results is called OCR or Optical Character Recognition. OCR is not a new at all. The first patent for the technology was filed back in the '20s In fact, it has been around in machine form since 1955. The US Postal Service has been using it since the '60's. Essentially, it converts printed text or writing on a page into digital form. That was the extent of the technology's abilities for a great deal of it's lifespan. The field has seen some great strides since then, including automatically formatting email addresses into hyperlinks, duplicating exact replicas of page structure(including columns and breaks), and PDF support.
Maybe you don't see how this could benefit you. Okay, I'll run you through a few scenarios, and show you how you'd save that time and money:
Uses for a Business:
- Invoices sent as pictures: I cannot stand it when someone sends me a bill of lading or a packing list, and I can't select the text. Just run one of these images through OCR software, and you automagically have text you can copy, paste, or otherwise manipulate for another document.
- The Trade Show Directory: Have you ever gone to a trade show, and received that massive directory of attendees? Maybe you wanted to get their names and addresses into your mailing system, or you just want their email addresses for your contact list. What if I told you that you could scan and digitize that 1200 page document in as little as 3 hours? At our company we did. We now have a digital directory of all suppliers and buyers in our industry, for the entire continent of North America, and we did it in just 3 hours.
- That Old Rolodex: Ah, yes. The trusty Rolodex. You may have replaced yours with an email contact list, or maybe you still keep it closely by your side, in case a natural disaster strikes. You can put 6-8 of these cards on the scanner at the time. In a little while, you will have a fireproof version of your contact list. You could even sync it to your email contacts.
- Business Cards: These things are the hardest in the world to keep up with. They are easy to lose, and they make a mess on your desk. OCR is able to accurately recognize the itty-bitty type, and turn it into something legible and usable. You can throw 8-10 on your scanner at any given time, and go to town.
There are a ton of other uses for business, but I can't go through all of them here. Let's turn our eyes toward uses for school and home.
Uses for School and Home:
- The Book Report: Don't you dislike typing in long passages for book reports? I know I do. A quick run through the scanner, and you'll have a ready-made quote to plunk down in the middle of your paper
- Lost Papers: How many times have you printed out a paper, and accidentally deleted the original on your hard drive? Once again, run it through, and you will have an editable copy in minutes.
- Contracts and Legal Documents: OCR makes it easy to modify a buyer or seller's agreement before sending it back to your realtor or lawyer, even if has just been sent as an image or hard copy.
- Digitize your signature: This is not technically an OCR feature, but I will throw it in as a freebie: Put your signature on a white sheet of paper using black ink. Scan the paper. Using GIMP or Photoshop, remove the white background. Save as a .png to preserve the transparency. The next time you need to sign a document you are typing, insert this image into OpenOffice or MS Word. Email the doc, knowing you never had to waste the paper to print it.
Are you convinced now? If so, let me tell you what you will need to make sure you can convert your text:
- You need a TWAIN compliant scanner. Most scanners released within the past 8 years or so follow this specification. Unless your scanner is really ancient, you shouldn't have a problem with this
- OCR Software: Most of the time, the software is installed along with the drivers for your scanner, and is completely free. Manufacturer versions are not often as full-featured as If you want a cheap solution, and are willing to settle for 97% or so accuracy vs. 99% percent, you can go with a free, open source option like GOCR. While I am not usually a big fan of commercial software, I will pay for a great package. If you are looking for software for your company, I recommend Omnipage Pro. You can pay 500 bucks for their current version, or pick up an earlier release for on eBay like I did. It's easy to use, and super fast.
- While not necessary, I highly recommend a scanner with an automatic document feeder, or ADF. This will make scanning large books a breeze, along with freeing you to do other things while the software does it's magic.
- I would also recommend a larger amount of RAM, as images can be quite memory intensive. The less time the application spends accessing your hard drive, the faster the processing will go.
Now that I've given you some ways to save time and money, go invent some ways to do even more. If you find a way to print money, do me a favor, and make an anonymous deposit to my account.
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