How to copy text from images and scanned documents
You cannot copy text from images or from scanned documents. You will need to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) images or the scanned documents to copy text from them. For those who do not know, OCR or Optical character recognition, is the recognition of printed or written text characters by a computer.
There are many products out in the market that have OCR capabilities. But if you have Microsoft Office installed on your machine then you do not need purchase or use any free OCR products, as some Microsoft office applications have built-in OCR engine.
You can OCR documents by using Microsoft Office Document Imaging tool and if you have Microsoft Office 2007 installed then you can also use Microsoft Office OneNote.
We will now see how to these applications to OCR images or scanned documents.
Copy text from images or scanned documents using Microsoft Office Document Imaging:
- Click on Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office Document Imaging.
- In Microsoft Office Document Imaging, click the File menu and select the Open… option to open the document that you want to OCR. The document will now be displayed.
- Click the Tools menu and select Recognize Text using OCR… option. A dialog will be launched.
- Select the appropriate option and click OK to begin the OCR.
- You can now copy text from this document. If you wish you can export the extracted text to a Word file then click the Tool menu and select the Send Text to Word… option.
By using this method you will not be able to copy text from document scanned as a PDF file. To do this you will need to use Microsoft Office OneNote (available in MS Office 2007)
Copy text from images or scanned documents using Microsoft Office OneNote:
- Click on Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.
- In Microsoft Office OneNote, click the Insert menu and select the Files as Printouts… option to open the document that you want to OCR. The document will now be displayed.
- Right click the displayed document and select the Copy Text from All the Pages of the Printout option.
- Once the text is copied you can then paste it in Notepad or Word.
That’s It!
Please note that the quality of the extracted text depends on the quality of the scanned document. If the document is not scanned properly then the OCR engine will not be able to recognize the text and give you gibberish text.
How to Combine Multiple Word Documents as a single file
The most preferred approach to combine multiple word documents is by copying and pasting one file’s information into another. The drawback of this approach is that sometimes you may lose the formatting of copied text and if there are multiple files to combine then you may end up spending a lot of time. There is a much simpler way combine files, it is as follows…
- Open a Word Document (a blank document will also do) and place your cursor at the spot where you wan to insert the other document.
- For Office 2007, click Insert tab and click the Object drop-down and select the Text from File… option. The Insert File dialog will be launched.
- For Office 2003, click the Insert menu and select the File option. The Insert File dialog will be launched.
- Now, select the file(s) that you want to combine/insert and click the Insert button.
That’s It! Your multiple word documents will now be combined as a single file.
Windows Live Writer - Best blog publishing application
All these days I used to use Microsoft Word 2007 as my blog publishing application. I noticed that my articles used to lose all its formatting once published from Word (P.S. If you will see my earlier post you will know what I am talking about). So after every post I used logon to Wordpress and re-format the article. In the bargain I used to waste a lot of time and patience.
After all these hassles I decided to find a blog publishing software which is especially designed for bloggers so that they can write their post and directly post it to their blog. I researched a bit and found out that Windows Live Writer is recommended and used by many bloggers.
Windows Live Writer (referred as WLW) is a free application developed by Microsoft, that is part of the Windows Live range of products. It features WYSIWYG authoring. WLW is currently compatible with most popular blogs like Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint blogs, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Wordpress etc.
Windows Live Writer is very easy to use. Though it looks simple, it is packed with all powerful features and not to forget the vast plug-ins it supports. WLW allows you to manage more than one blog. It allows you to insert photos, videos and maps in your post and it also uploads them to the location you specify. It also has a preview pane so that you can view how your post will look once it is published. And it also has a HTML editing pane for advanced users.
WLW also allows you add tags, categories and excerpts to your post. It also allows you to save your post to your local drive. A very popular feature of WLW is the Set publish date. This feature allows you to set a date to publish the article.
These are just a few features of Windows Live Writer. According to me Windows Live Writer is best blog publishing software. If you use Windows Live Writer and would like to share some tips or features that I have missed out then please leave your comments.
Click here to download: Window Live Writer
How to take a screenshot in Windows?
You will be thinking that “Why is this guy writing an article on taking a screenshot, why do you even need to take a screenshot of your Window”, then my friend you may have not yet contacted your software vendor for support. If you ever contact Microsoft or any other software vendor to report a program crash or error on your PC most likely they may ask you to mail the “screenshot” of the error. So, now that you know why do need to take a screenshot, we will now learn how to take a screenshot.
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Sidebar is shifted to the bottom of the page
I just started this blog (and blogging) a few weeks back. Hence I’m still not familiar with Wordpress. Last week or so when I posted an article I just realized that the Sidebar is moved to the bottom of the page. I searched for this problem on Wordpress.org forum. When I saw the search result I realized that there are many people like me facing the same problem. I read a few post and understood that if images are very large they expand their coulmn to fit in it and hence the adjacent coulmn is pushed to the bottom of the page. So I reduced the sizes of my images as suggested, however this din’t solve my problem.
After some more reserach I found this Layout Issues article on Wordpress.com. This article contains the basic troubleshooting steps that should be followed to solve the sidebar problem. This article was a life saver for me. I hope this article helps you too.
How to restore a MS SQL Server 2005 Database?
In an earlier article I had shown how to back up a MS SQL Server 2005 DB. The following article shows how to restore a backed up MS SQL Server 2005 DB.
- Click Start > All Programs > MS SQL Server 2005 > SQL Server Management Studio. The SQL Server Management Studio will now be launched.
- Enter your login details and connect to the server.
How do I enable mixed mode authentication in MS SQL?
You can configure MS SQL Server Authentication to run in Mixed Mode i.e. log in to a MS SQL Server using either your Windows username and password or your SQL Server username and password. The following article shows to enable the Mixed Mode in MS SQL Server 2005.
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How to back up a MS SQL Server 2005 Database?
If you use a database to store your data then it becomes mandatory to backup it up. A Backup is a copy of your data that is maintained so that you can bring back your data, in case of a system failure. Depending on how important your data is you need to back it up every day/ every week or every month. The following article explains how to backup your MS SQL DB.
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How to Add a Watermark to a Page in Microsoft Word?
Follow the steps below to insert a watermark on your document using Microsoft Word.
How to type in other languages on Windows XP and Windows Vista?
In Windows, English is not the only input language. If you wish, you can change the language you type in, to Spanish or any other language that is supported by Windows. You can change the Input languages for both Windows XP and Vista. Follow the steps below to change the input language…
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