How To Put Paper Into A Typewriter

Piles of Typed Manuscripts

"I have an old pile of typed manuscripts that were never saved on a estimator. I want to observe a scanner that can EASILY and EFFICIENTLY connect to my Macbook Pro, which will turn those former manuscripts into pdf files to exist saved digitally. Information technology would be fifty-fifty better if the scanner would save the files in a course that could exist edited, just that's less important than just getting them into digital course."

Browse information technology to PDF
This role is easy, especially on a Mac. At BestBuy or wherever, request a scanner known to "see" text pretty well–just actually, any of today's scanners tin can credibly digitize your quondam stuff equally an prototype file. Save your scan as a multi-folio, high-quality epitome–a .tiff or a .psd. After the save, select information technology, click Impress, and when the Print Menu comes upward, look for a "Save as PDF" pick (on whatsoever reckoner running Os X, it will always be at that place). Click on "Save every bit PDF" and y'all're done.

PDF to MS Word – the OCR Dilemma
Here's where it gets catchy. PDF is technically an image format, so turning it into editable text (a doc or docx file) is like cramming the square peg into a round hole. Because software for OCR (optical character recognition) costs a lot of money.

But happily shareware developers are coming up with cheaper solutions. In Windows, there are a variety of options. But for your MacBook Pro, running OS X, the pickin's are slimmer. In that location'southward an awarding chosen PDF OCR. I haven't used it, but at $29.95 it'south certainly worth a try. Besides: a spider web based service called PDF Converter with have diverse membership levels. Try out their $nine/mo. level–you tin cancel at any fourth dimension.

For the Rich
I'll mention, for the record, a couple of "Cadillac" OCR mentions. One is Adobe Acrobat (not Adobe Reader, mind you lot). It'll price y'all $449 (ouch!). The other is Concluding Draft.

For Playwrights
Final Typhoon tin take over and do an first-class draft of giving yous a formatted Final Draft file (.fdr) that you lot can "Save Equally" a Word doc or docx–keeping the original FD formatting. That's pretty slick, and almost effortless–bold you already own Last Draft or have $249 to drop.

The Winner
Probably the best solution of all, if you don't mind learning how to employ it, is OmniPage Pro X, fifty-fifty pricier, for the Mac, at $499. For Windows, Omnipage comes in the usual array of cheaper versions–from $49 to $149 and upward–but even with the Windows limitation, Omnipage gets my vote for the software of choice. You'll either have to own a Windows computer, know someone who does, or have Windows installed on a partition of your Mac's difficult drive, simply compared to coughing up $449, the extra trouble may be worth information technology.

Background Note for Info Nerds
OCR, being a course of object recognition, is one of the toughest challenges a estimator can face. The slightest typographical irregularity can make a scan spin off into irregularity–old newsprint is an absolute nightmare. This is why you should attempt to start with a totally clean print job (use a lazer printer, if possible) and a non-Seraph font.

Happily, the folks at Google, who want to digitize every text on the face of the globe, are deeply into inquiry on this equally we sleep, so y'all can wait OCR to improve noticeably over the next few years.

For playwrights using Final Draft, the key is getting a skillful PDF file. At that betoken, Concluding Draft can take over and practice an excellent draft of giving you a formatted Last Draft file (.fdr). In one case yous have that, you tin can "Save As" a Word doc or docx–and go along the formatting. That'due south another platonic solution–bold you have $249 to drop on Final Typhoon.

Source: http://fictionwriterstoolbox.com/convert-your-old-typed-manuscripts-to-pdf-and-word-docs/