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Software
When you buy a scanner you're also paying for the software
that's bundled with it. The bundle will probably contain a
driver program, colour calibration software, image-editing
software and optical recognition software (OCR). For Windows
the driver program is usually TWAIN compatible.
TWAIN isn't an acronym and doesn't have anything to do with
new country. A TWAIN driver allows imaging devices like
scanners to be compatible with TWAIN-supported software.
Since TWAIN is an industry standard most bundled software
will operate off TWAIN. Colour calibration software tries to
maintain the original colours of the image throughout its
processing. This means that what you see on the monitor and
what you print out should be reasonably close to the colours
of the original.
Image-editing Software
For image-editing software, more often than not, you'll be
getting watered down or "lite" versions of graphics programs
(i.e. Adobe Photo Deluxe or Ulead PhotoImpact). Upgrading to
the full version of a program will be worth the money if you
really want all the cool effects that let you twiddle with
images. More expensive scanners sometimes include full
versions of software. Decide what you'll want to do with
your scans and choose a software package that fits your
needs.
Optical Recognition Software (OCR)
To produce editable text from a scanned document you need
OCR software (ie. Caere OmniPage and Xerox TextBridge).
While a scanned document can be read on a monitor, the
computer sees it as a picture, not as editable text. You
can't move the words around or type in new ones. Optical
recognition programs examine the scanned image and convert
it into a format that can be read by a word processor,
spreadsheet or database.
Many scanners come with limited OCR software, but you're not
going to get the sophisticated programs that can translate
tables, charts and spreadsheets. If scanning for OCR is your
main purpose for the scanner, you can get away with a black
and white scanner.
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