[robpopper]

I'm finally getting rid of a loose leaf address book and wonder whether is a program or method to enable me to scan the listings directly into my Contacts in Outlook 2003. Any thought on the subject will be appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Running Win XP -Pro / Sp3 & MS Office 2003.

[bkmgy]

Check for the software that comes along with your scanner. It should have an option to read business cards and save them or sync to Outlook. Most card scanners (hardware) have that facility.

Even some mobile phones have the option to capture the business card and save as Contacts.

If you have a regular flatbed scanner then scan the sheets and use a business card scanner software to import to Outlook. If your address book sheet is not in business card format, then best way is to scan it and use OCR option in your scanner software and manually copy/paste the text into Outlook Contacts.

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by bkmgy

and manually copy/paste the text into Outlook Contacts.

There is no text in scanned documents that can be copied or pasted. It is an image.

OCR software is the only possibility, and not a very sure one, either. You may end up wasting a lot of time and then typing them in manually, anyway.

[robpopper]

Thanks all for the help. I should have realized that the scan is a image file and that there is no text in it. Can anyone suggest a low priced OCR program that could help with this project? (I do have an HP all in one but it did not come with OCR software.

[DaveA]

Look at the software that came with your scanner, ALL of them provide a OCR program.

As for a free one, just do a google on "Free OCR" and see what hits you get.

BUT, when it comes to OCR programs you get what you pay for. I use OmniPage which is NOT cheap.

[robpopper]

I'm thinking that it will probably be easier to bite the bullet and just type in the information. Thanks once again for the replies and help.

[bkmgy]

Hi robpopper, Here is great news for you. You can do OCR using Google Docs. Here is how...
http://support.google.com/docs/bin/a...answer=1250387

[robpopper]

bkmgy, I didn't see a listing for the software to convert from a jpg file. Am I missing something?

[robpopper]

whoops, looking at it closer it does accept a psd file. I will try it. Thanks for the heads up.

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by robpopper

bkmgy, I didn't see a listing for the software to convert from a jpg file. Am I missing something?

From the lionk above

In the "Upload settings" dialog, you can select from these options:
•Convert documents, presentations, spreadsheets and drawings to the corresponding Google Docs format.
◦Select this option to convert all of your files from their existing format, like an Open Office document, into an editable online version in Google Docs. If you don't select this option, this document will appear as a view-only document in the Google Docs Viewer.
•Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents.
◦Select this option to convert image files into a collaborative online version in Google Docs by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology