Using OCR Software with Personal Knowbase

If you have installed a scanner and OCR (optical character recognition) software, you may be able to scan text directly into a Personal Knowbase article. This would allow you to use Personal Knowbase as a simple document manager for your text documents.

Many OCR packages, however, do not support direct access from other Windows applications. This procedure varies depending on your scanner and your OCR package. Refer to their documentation for details on installing and using their software. If the documentation indicates that the software inserts menu commands directly into other Windows applications, it should work with Personal Knowbase.

If your OCR software does not support direct access from other Windows applications, you can probably use the Copy and Paste Clipboard commands to copy text from the OCR software to a Personal Knowbase article. Refer to the procedure for Copying Text from Another Windows Application.

If your OCR software does not support the Copy command, you must export the scanned text to a text file and use the Personal Knowbase Import command to create an article. Refer to the procedure for Importing from a Text File.

If your OCR software does support direct access to other Windows applications, you can scan documents directly into Personal Knowbase:

•	Start your OCR software.

•	Set up your scanner and the material you want to scan.

•	Start Personal Knowbase if it is not already running.

In Personal Knowbase, one or more new menu commands appears, reflecting the functions provided by your OCR software. The command(s) probably appear in the File menu and are something similar to Recognize Text. If such commands do not appear, your OCR software probably does not support direct access from other Windows applications.

•	Make sure that a data file is currently open.

If no file is open, refer to the procedures for Creating a New Data File or Opening an Existing Data File.

•	Click on the New Article button on the Toolbar.

OR Select the New Article command from the Article menu.

A blank Article Window is displayed.

•	Click on the large Article Content area of the window to move the cursor there.

The OCR software inserts its results at the cursor.

•	Select the new OCR menu command which was added by the OCR software.

The OCR command(s) probably appear in the File menu and are something similar to Recognize Text.

Your OCR software should now become active. Refer to your scanner and OCR software documentation to scan your documents and create text. When the OCR software is finished, the converted text appears in the Article Content area of the Article Window.

•	Review and edit the converted text as necessary.

•	Type a title for the new article in the title edit box.

•	Assign keywords to the new article.

•	Click on the window's close box to close and save the article.

This saves the article permanently in the data file.

Related Procedures:

Entering New Information

Modifying an Existing Article

Assigning a Keyword to an Article