Possible to including OCR using open source OCR OCRopus?

[Coolrat]

Hi
It seems that many people use Evernote mainly because it offers OCR scanning of photos and images.
I personally have gone to great lengths to avoid using Evernote. My friends think I am irrational, but I have my reasons:
1. Because its 'cloud' based and I do not want my data 'on the cloud'
2. The internet is amazingly slow here in China where its monitored endlessly by the GreatFirewall
3. Evernote is a large corporation. Trusting personal data to a large corporation is not a good idea
4. I don't like large corporations. Small companies drive economies.
5. Its not a nice-looking app and its long roll-style method of storing data doesnt' work for me.

It would seem that adding OCR to MyInfo might be a good idea, although I guess this is no small feat at all.
The open-source OCR initiative by Google http://code.google.com/p/ocropus/ might be a starting point.

I'm not sure if this is practical at all. But it sounds like a nice dream.

[gcoulthard]

Not sure that I would want OCR built into the product, especially if performance would be compromised. However, this might make a great "plugin" option. Or, perhaps, an internal scripting engine should be considered, whereby one could use python or wscript to launch an external application that could work on internal data stored in MyInfo.

Just thinking out loud again,
Glen

[Coolrat]

I would tend to agree. An OCR function would doubtlessly add a ton of bloat. But as a plugin it might be great.
A quick Google search shows that there are other projects out there using the OCRopus engine.

[wsp]

I use Screenshot Reader (ABBYY), a small program capable of doing OCR on an image containing text. It works nicely, but of course it's not integrated with MyInfo.

[Coolrat]

Very nice suggestion. I've used other AABBY Finereader 10 OCR before and found them to be much better than Omnipage 16. But I don't think it included a Screenshot reader at that time and the app was huge and slowed my computer to a grinding halt each time I started it. I'll check out AABBYY Screenshot Reader.

[wsp]

The good news is that Screenshot Reader is now being sold separately, though the earlier version I'm using came as part of the big OCR program. It performs very capably, but as with any OCR app, you should do some proof-reading afterwards.

[DDalian]

Screenshot reader is being offered for free from the vendor as a christmas propmotion. When you get to the web site click on the bonus link at the bottom and follow the instructions.
http://www.abbyy.com/screenshot_reader/

[mfelix]

Thanks DDalian, that hint is quite a treat