When you scan a document in it's just scanned in as a JPEG. Some scanners come with free basic OCR software, I think all HPs scanners I have had did.

Years ago we spent a lot on read iris pro I think it was when I had to do a bunch of stuff for my husband but I found it a pain and it made mistakes and I could type much faster than fiddling with the program to edit. Hopefully things have changed now and someone can reccomend a good one. With any luck it will have a free sample so you can try before you buy. Mary

My Cannon scanner came with Textbridge (in 1999) which did a decent job on the rare occasion that I used it.
There's a freeware version out, Textbridge Classic, which I haven't used.

I don't know if this is related or not, but thought I would post it anyway. My W 7 came with word and I had always used works, so I had a lot to learn. One of the things was copy and pasting from a web site, I couldn't not edit it. One item was a list of books from a web site. The list took up 3 pages of double spaced titles and I could not edit it to one page. I googled and found the solution. When you paste in word there are 3 options, I chose A which was "text only". That way the formatting is not pasted with the document and I could edit the pages. I ended up with two columns, single spaced on one page.

You might try copy and pasting your document to another page and try that option if you have it.

This post was edited by EmmaR on Wed, Apr 24, 13 at 10:47

That works only if you have already typed up the document but I think they are talking about documents that were not previsously typed up in a computer so are not saved in word or anything to edit. I much prefer MS word over works for typing up documents. We had works ages ago then had to get MS office when we had XP so I got more used to word now but we could use a newer version of office since ours is very outdated. Mary

Yes,the document wasn't previously in my computer. . Apparently my scanner doesn't have the OCR software which would enable me to edit the document. Perhaps it is time to get a new scanner. Thanks for the info.

Abbey

I would try some samples of OCR programs first and not just get a new scanner that comes with it. You might find it's more of a pain to use than it's worth. When I had to do stuff for my husband years ago he couldn't understand why I didn't like fiddling with the program and correcting all the mistakes when I could just as easily type it up from scratch myself. I can type pretty fast and accurate. That was my best subject in high school on a manual type writer at that, he he. Mary

My Canon printer/scanner came with an additional OCR program. When I have something that needs OCR I open the OCR program and scan through that. In the 5 yrs. IâÂÂve had the printer/scanner I think I have used the OCR less than a dozen times. I wouldnâÂÂt by a new scanner just for the OCR, but when you are in the market for a printer/scanner look for one that has an OCR program bundled with it.

Take a look at the attached website link for a free OCR service. You upload an image file to the website (it works with many including PDF and JPG) and it does the OCR bit and produces a file for you to download. You can choose among Word, Excel, or txt formats for the download.

It seems to work pretty well. As the site is a bit cryptic as to who is behind the service, I personally would avoid uploading anything with identifiable personal information. But I do think it's legit and for very occasional use, probably very satisfactory for most people.

Here is a link that might be useful: OCR website