JPEG to Word or TEXT document

[FAAAEd]

For what it is worth I copied several hundred pages of documents at the NA this summer using a digital camera. I have tried three ways of turning the typed documents into a Word file:

1. OCR scanning;

2. Dictation using Dragon Naturally Speaking;

3. Typing in manually.

I suspect that, overall, that either 2 or 3 were the best.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Standard is not that expensive and is available in Canada. Amazon.ca have it for CDN$129.99

Thank you for reminding me about option 2.

I have been thinking along similar lines myself and wonder if:

a) Dragon is the best all round product, for Win XP

bee) is the built in Mic' on my laptop likely to work

c) does Dragon link in with particular text or document processors such as Word (or as on my laptop OpenOffice)?

Thanks for any further advice.

[Dragon]

You might find it helpful to revisit this thread on voice activated software.

Gwyn

[MartinWills]

The experts - those who need to rely upon voice recognition software for reasons such as RSI and other disabilities - tell me that Dragon Naturally Speaking "Preferred" is the best. It still has it's foibles, though. It can also be a strain on the voice reading into the PC. Poor handwriting or miniscule handwriting can also be a major problem when transcribing and will slow you down whether typing manually or "reading".

As for the NA - yes, lots of camera to be seen there - and the copy stands are a real boon!

[bmac]

a) Dragon is the best all round product, for Win XP

bee) is the built in Mic' on my laptop likely to work

c) does Dragon link in with particular text or document processors such as Word (or as on my laptop OpenOffice)?

a) Not sure whether Dragon is better than ViaVoice (if it is still available) as I have only ever used Dragon

bee) The package comes with a mike headset which also has a single headphone allowing you to listen to playback if you get the version that allows that. Standard doesn't, Preferred does I believe. There is quite a price hike between the Standard and Preferred. I have Dragon 8.1 Standard tho' I might upgrade if persuaded it is worthwhile.

c) You can either dictate into the text box that comes with the package that can then be saved into a .doc format or you can dictate direct into Word. Not tried that with OpenOffice but as I have them both on the laptop I will try at some point.

Dragon does have some major frustrations understanding some fairly basic words and you need to standardise your speech to an extent, i.e. deciding to say 'the' with either an 'ee' noise or 'er' at the end. As mentioned it ain't great at determining things like 'to', 'two' and 'too' from the context. Takling time to train and then to teach as you dictate is worthwhile. The teaching slows you down initially but it is worth it later. As long as you standardise the pronunciation it will recognise French village names, for example, very well.

With a decent processor and memory it runs OK, I have used it most recently on a laptop with 1.6Ghz processor with 1Gb RAM and it was fine. Now moved up to a laptop with a 2.0HGhz dual core processor with 2Gb RAM but haven't used it yet. May experiment today.

One thing occurs to me that as you can use dictating machines at TNA it would presumably be acceptable to dictate direct into the computer as well. Only ever used a digital camera.

Also, in another thread on this subject, someone asked about the software recognising the voice from different settings, i.e. normal speech and the rather more hushed tones perhaps used in the NA. Here it is a case of training for different user profiles. Then you select whichever is appropriate. It also used to be able to accept files from things like a minidisc recorder (has to be a digital device). I used that at the IWM where they don't allow cameras and it worked OK. Just plugged the minidisc recorder into the mike socket of the computer and it downloaded into Dragon reasonably well.

[Muerrisch]

There is an upside to doing manual transcription: you learn your subject.

The greatest expert on the Zulu War 1879 had no modern technology available for his original research: this was c. 1975. So all his notes are in beautiful mss, and he learned his subject as he went along, with cross-references etc forming gradually in his head.

When I learned my profession, we had chalkboard and notebooks. The received wisdom was to copy the board into the notebook in pencil, and attempt to follow the lecture. Later that day, to ink-in your notes BUT ONLY IF YOU UNDERSTOOD. Next day there was a tutorial before the lesson to deal with problems. 50 years later, I still know my subject plus bolt-ons and amendments over the intervening years.

'There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth visiting'

[John Gilinsky]

There is an upside to doing manual transcription: you learn your subject.

The greatest expert on the Zulu War 1879 had no modern technology available for his original research: this was c. 1975. So all his notes are in beautiful mss, and he learned his subject as he went along, with cross-references etc forming gradually in his head.

When I learned my profession, we had chalkboard and notebooks. The received wisdom was to copy the board into the notebook in pencil, and attempt to follow the lecture. Later that day, to ink-in your notes BUT ONLY IF YOU UNDERSTOOD. Next day there was a tutorial before the lesson to deal with problems. 50 years later, I still know my subject plus bolt-ons and amendments over the intervening years.

'There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth visiting'

Yes I would agree that repetition is one of the major ways to learn and copying and recopying are still quite useful. HOWEVER the technology thatis available allows one to study not just one or a few but the MANY. Thus history is more "democratic" to this extent. Thanks,

John

(damned newly created 2nd. Lieutenant SIR!