NEED: software that will scan school assignments

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

I am looking for a software program that will allow me to scan in my 9 yo son’s school assignments, worksheets and or tests, and then allow him to complete the work *on* the computer, save it to his Jump Drive and print it out at school.

For example: I want to scan in his science worksheets and he could “fill in the blanks” on the computer so that when he prints it out his typing will be on the same page and line as his questions. As it is right now he gets a worksheet and either I retype everything making him a template or he types out his answers and staples them to the worksheet. (There is no guarantee that the two parts will stay together for the teacher to grade them or for him to review his answers prior to a test.)

It would be a super bonus if this same (or different software: please name it) software could highlight different parts of a page similar to the way you can highlight using MS Word or MS Excel.

Thanks,
DMS

Submitted by Kay on Wed, 01/31/2007 - 9:05 PM

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Try this:

http://www.digitalriver.com/v2.0-img/operations/scansoft/site/html/omniform/OmniForm_5.html

I personally haven’t used it, instead I scan to a pdf file and use the full version of Adobe Acrobat to fill in forms, or use Adobe Illustrator. However, that would be tedious for a child to do. It sounds like the Omniform program is what you’re looking for.

Another inexpensive option is a plain old typewriter. Decent ones can typically be found at garage sales for under $20.00

Kay

Submitted by scifinut on Thu, 02/01/2007 - 12:14 AM

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http://www.kurzweiledu.com - Kurzweil 3000 is what is on my daughter’s laptop for school. We love it!

Others to look at are:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/LSG/products/wynn.asp

http://www.readingmadeez.com/TalkingWordProcessor.php

I know there are a few more. What we did to pick the one that worked for my dd is to get the Demo versions and give them a good trial. She spent a summer using different ones to see which one worked best for her. Kurzweil was the one that was easiest for her to use, had the most options and is fully integrated for what she needs.

Good luck on your search!

Submitted by geodob on Thu, 02/01/2007 - 5:01 AM

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Hi DMS,
Do you already have a scanner?
I bought a cheap Canon scanner for under a $100.
Which comes with Caere Omni Page Pro 9.
Which I find works very well.
You also select the format that you want to save the scanned image in as well. So you can save it as a Word document, and then you just open it with Word, to work on.
It can also save it as Excel, and some other formats as well.
Geoff,

Submitted by DMS on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 3:00 PM

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Hi Geoff,

Yes we bought a new all in one (with scanner) and my husband has been attempting to get it to scan the way I would like. I am not sure which software it came with but he can *either* get it to scan for text *or* scan for graphics. He is still attempting to get it to do both. I believe that we have “MS Imaging software that does OCR”, but I am not certain…

How is “Caere Omni Page Pro 9” different from “OmniForm 5.0”? I have looked at that online…

I am also waiting to hear back from our elementary school as to which program they use so we can purchase the same one.

Thanks again for the help.

DMS

PS: Geoff, I was attempting to use some of the suggestions you gave me on another topic with my son, however, he broke his hand in the mean time and with his balance issues and now he is only able to use one crutch for balance I have decided to wait a few weeks until his hand is better and he has the use of both hands (and crutches for balance). I have not forgotten about it but rather life has gotten in the way. Thanks again for all of your replies to my, and other, posts. -DMS :-)

Submitted by geodob on Fri, 02/09/2007 - 8:06 AM

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Hi DMS,
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, which is what you need. [Character=Letter]
If you already have MS Imaging OCR software, I would suggest trying that out. Given that it is MS-microsoft, you should be able to save it as a Word document or Excel. Which you’ll be able to print out on any school computer.
With OmniForm, it only saves it as an OmniForm file. Which would be a problem at the school.
So if you already have an MS one, I’d suggest trying that out first.
Geoff,

Submitted by DMS on Fri, 02/09/2007 - 3:30 PM

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Geoff,

I will attempt to get what we have to work *this* weekend. I still have not heard back from the school and at least if we can get it to work at home (and also print correctly at school) then this is a great starting place.

I wish I were more computer savvy…

Thanks again,

DMS

Submitted by Goodysbaby on Wed, 02/14/2007 - 4:46 PM

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I am a Disabilities Coordinator at a college in Michigan. We use Abbyy Fine Reader

http://www.abbyy.com

This particular software has OCR and will change files from PDF to MsWord, scan to MSword, scan to PDF etc.,. Depending upon the screen reader used by the student this allows us to reformat readings in their preference of format.

It scans the materials, reads the material, you will then need to spell check it will sometimes change the world “the” to “die”.

As a whole we are happy it has increased our production rate compared to Kurzweil 3000. We continue to offer Kurzweil 3000 on all labs and in dorms. But, using this to create E-text has been more efficient for our use.

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