Jump to content

(Archived) Feature: OCR-like substance?


Recommended Posts

Finally getting used to Evernote and its ability to search text but not perform actual OCR.

As I understand it, the algorithm for evernote creates possible interpretations of the text that are then given some sort of point value.

Here's my question/request - could there be a feature that enables a "dump" of the highest-point interpretation for each item that are indexed for search? Even if it wasn't perfect, it would be the one feature that pushes Evernote ahead of all of the other note-taking products I've evaluated.

Link to comment

The raw XML image search data is available via our API, and also available in our Export (*.enex) files from the desktop. This means that someone could potentially extract the data they are interested in. However, this still wouldn't be a straightforward conversion into a standard text document, since each "word" is a separate target with arbitrary geometric coordinates within the image. There's no concept of "lines" of text, since Evernote is tuned for handling very low quality images (compared to standard OCR solutions).

If you have a clean black-and-white scan of printed text, there are a number of very mature solutions on the market to provide OCR on these documents. Evernote's focus is on providing good search for your raw images rather than replacing OCR software.

Link to comment

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the answer - I understand that there are OCR programs out there, and I have a couple. Hell, OneNote is decent from that perspective.

However, I (and I'm sure many other users) would love to have one place where my notes go rather than a few. It's nice from an engineering perspective to say "there are other solutions for that feature = go use another program for that part of your day", but I can guarantee that when there's a solution that offers it all in one place (e.g. when OneNote gets a cloud component in 2010) so that I don't have to use one solution for diagrams and pictures, and a different one for text notes, I'll use it.

When I search the forums and blogs, I find this to be an oft-mentioned shortcoming of Evernote. Seems to me that I'm not the only one who wants this, and would pay for it if it were available. I, for one, would happily pay more for it than I do my Evernote premium subscription. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

-Mike

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...