Ask Jim Why

OCR option needed to edit scanned papers

July 03, 2006|By James Coates

Q. I have a Windows XP computer and my printer/scanner is the 6210 all-in-one from Hewlett Packard. I would like to be able to fill in text on different forms. But here is what happens:

I say "No" when I am asked if I want to scan for text OCR because if I say "Yes" it will not scan it in correctly. Then it asks where I want to scan it to and I say Microsoft Word. Then I can scan the form into my copy of Microsoft Word by hitting an HP Director icon. It will scan it perfectly into Microsoft Word but I cannot type any info onto the form. I am a senior citizen and no great shakes on the computer. Can you help me? Thank you very much.

Eileen McClain

A. You are understandably confused, Ms. M., because instead of scanning editable text into your Word document the HP software is making a picture of the page and putting that into the Word display, just as Word will display other photos that are loaded into it.

Scanners must use Optical Character Recognition software to convert text into editable form that could then let you use Word to fill in the blanks.

So you need to get that OCR option to work rather than bypassing it. The problem is that you have the resolution set too low for the software to see enough detail during the scanning to differentiate letters.

So when the scanner software comes up to let you preview the document, look for the Resolution heading in the display to the right showing the document as a thumbnail picture. Click the little upside-down triangle and scroll down to at least 300 dots per inch. Your scanner now will take longer to read each page but it will be able to reproduce them accurately as computer text ready to load into Word and fill in blanks on the forms.

Q. I have an annoying problem: The System 32 folder opens every time I start my computer. I have no idea how this happened. I have searched the Internet for assistance but the information I have found is way too technical for me to decipher. How do I stop the folder from opening at startup?

Gail Rice

A. I applaud you for mustering the gumption to search the Web for a solution, Ms. R. A lot of computer problems can be solved that way, but often there is so much complex and conflicting advice passed about among gearheads like me that the fog becomes too thick to cut. I fear that the answer will seem kind of daunting, but I will walk you through it.

If it still seems daunting, then another option is to just shut the doggone Startup 32 folder each time rather than attempt the fix. I'll report; you decide.

To stop the opening of the folder at each startup you need to make changes in the huge Windows XP master file of settings called the System Registry. This is a bit dangerous because making a mistake can mess up the computer, so you first need to open the Registry and make a copy of it in its current state before proceeding.

Click on Start and then Run and type in regedit and click OK. In the display that comes up, click on File and then select Export. This lets you copy the Registry to a file on the computer's desktop. If something goes wrong, your computer will return to its current settings when you double-click the Registry backup icon.

You will see that the Registry amounts to a long list of items called Keys in a pane on the left; a pane on the right shows settings for each item. As you click on the item on the left it will expand to a list of folders, each with a tiny plus sign. As you click the plus signs the next folder list will appear. Doing this you need to drill down to HKEY(underscore)LOCAL(underscore)MACHINE SOFTWARE





Now look at the pane on the right; you will see a list of items that run when Windows starts up. Click on each item and a small box will appear showing the name and a line that should show a program. You will find one of these items that has a so-called null value and there will be two quotation marks instead of any program name. Delete that item and you will have killed the culprit that calls up the System 32 folder but cannot close it.

The reason for all of this is that when a program runs in Windows it needs to open the special folder called System 32 to identify itself to the operating system. After it runs a program, it is supposed to shut the System 32 folder. When a Registry entry points to nothing but two quotation marks the System 32 file is opened but there is nothing to close it afterward.

Q. When I click on a word processing .doc file I get the error message "cannot open the document" shown in the attachment. However, when I do a file-open from inside Word 97 the document opens fine, so it is not the file itself. Any ideas?

Manny Kramer, Charles City, Va.