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I need a scanner (flatbed, for my PC, using Win'7) and software to put the text from business cards into an ASCII text format.
I have 110 business cards to enter into my database here, and it's taking me 20 and 30 minutes apiece. (Along with the typing, I check the company website, phone, etc. to make sure it's correct.)
There is a program somewhere which will read and covert them to ASCII text; even do the logo, I think.
I saw it once but didn't bookmark it, and now I can't find it.
Google/Bing/Yahoo/Etc. are leading me all to a bunch of iPhone apps.
I know I saw that software advertised right on my screen in front of my eyes. The ad said that you can lay ten cards at a time on the glass of your flatbed scanner and it will do the rest; zip-zap;
And,,,,,
You get the phone number and E-Mail address correct.
I wish I knew how to phrase the question so that one of those sites could find it for me.
It was commercial pay-ware; as I remember it, quite reasonable; maybe $35 or so.
Brain assistance requested, welcome, and invited.
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Thanks.
Looking it over now
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I suggest taking a look at some of the all-in-one printer/scanner solutions from Canon, Brother or Epson. The companies supply software that works with the scanner functions to provide character recognition interfaces to your word processing, spreadsheet and data collection software.
You also gain with relatively cheap high definition printing.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Your advice has been taken.
Epson WorkForce WF-2630
Prints just fine via WiFi.
At this moment, I can't make it scan across the WiFi connection, which is the one and only reason I bought it.
Anyway, $95 is not bad, well, if it works. I remember seeing something about a requirement to turn the whole system off after installing some of the software; no clue what they're doing. Epson is supposed to have some pretty good OCR, so I hope your advice and my action were both good.
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The character recognition software can be found in the support section of the Epson website related to your printer. I chose a wf7610 that allows scanning and printing of A3 size documents.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Got it. Bugs worked out over here; IP address confusion, and clarification with their tech support about where the buttons to click are located.
Interesting, Just being able to see the cards, large, on my screen, seems to be almost as much a time-saver as the cut and paste thing. The OCR is good, but not quite human.
Super tiny fonts are clearly a part of that problem.
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By the time you have researched it, bought and paid for it, set it up, fiddled around to get it working right you could have typed them all in! 
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+50 
Jeremy Falcon
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Karel Čapek wrote: By the time you have researched it, bought and paid for it, set it up, fiddled around to get it working right you could have typed them all in!
That is not the software way... a software engineer will spend 5 hours writing a program to automate something that would take him (her) an hour to do manually.
Clearly you are new here.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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Aah, but he'll win in the long run. If he decided to automate, the thing that takes him an hour would surely be a thing that he'll have to do on a regular bases, or at least once in a while. What the script will ensure is that he does it the same way every time, producing the same output . The script will also ensure that he doesn't forget how to do it... and, that if he leaves the company the next person will know how to do it. He's scripting skills will improve which will reduce the time he spends writing his next script. He will build a source code base, which will also reduce the time he spends writing his next script.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."
<< please vote!! >></div>
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Verification and validation expert !!!!
I like it !
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Actually, I am estimating a 50 to 60 hour job.
That would be pure time.
With easily predicted interruptions, this task (which I have prioritized as the #1 item) will never get done by human effort.
Big factor: my eyes are so farsighted that I can't even focus on the stars in the sky.
The probability of human error is like the calculus definition of "the limit" which in this case equals 1.
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Absolutely !
When I get rich, that's high on the list of things to have.
I told the guy at the front door of Best Buy what I'm trying to do, and that's exactly how he responded; and hooked me up with a guy on the floor who took me right to those things.
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Take photos of the cards with your phone and upload them somewhere. Then set up a job on Amazon Mechanical Turk or one of many other piecemeal work websites and offer 3 cents per card.
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I only insert my private member into well known, healthy and safe places 
while (true) {
continue;
}
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I'm sure this is what you say to all those not very well known places  .
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Well, those places are not so many and should not be over-estimated
while (true) {
continue;
}
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That adds new meaning to the term "clean compile".
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Are plateaus the highest form of flattery?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Now you're making mountains out of mole hills.
/ravi
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