Share via

How can I import a tif file (OCR) into Word or WordPad?

Anonymous
2011-10-16T02:07:03+00:00

I have used a Canon MP190 to scan docs with their "OCR" setting, which gives me .tif files. I have done this twice before and somehow converted the .tif files to .rtf files (so I know it's possible), but I always forget what I did to make it work before. I'm now using Windows 7 Starter/MS Office Word 2010; I can't open the .tif with WordPad, either. Did it work with a previous version of Wordpad? I tried an OCR converter program, but the results are way worse than the results I got previously.

Surely someone out there knows how to do this! If so, I would greatly appreciate your help.

Melissa

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-16T07:29:31+00:00

    My canon MP 150 comes with optional called MP Navigator that controls scanning.

    With Office 2010, you can "OCR" or extract the text from the TIFF image file using OneNote. Simply paste or insert the tif file into OneNote, then right click on it and select "Copy text from picture". This will capture any recognizable text in the image file into the clipboard where you can paste it into OneNote or Word.

    Quality of OCR results are directly releated to image quality. If you are using an old or dirty paper copy, or the text is low contrast to the background then the OCR tool has a hard time interpretting the letters.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

4 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-16T13:48:33+00:00

    Wow. The last thing I wanted was to learn a new piece of software, but OneNote is there, and it works the way you said, no problems, no learning curve. Super cool! Thanks!

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2011-10-16T13:44:24+00:00

    Canon says the output of their OCR scan can only be imported into WordPad or Notepad, but I haven't been able to get this to work, either. The OCR software was a freebie, touted as superior.

    As I said, I've done it before, but I don't remember whether it was something I did with the printer software or with one of the word processors. It's bizarre, because I have a feeling about it that's like having something on the tip of your tongue, but I can't quite access that memory.

    Thanks for your input.

     :(

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-10-16T04:36:26+00:00

    I don't know anything about the software that came with your Canon scanner, but as Charles indicates if the output is TIF then you have not scanned to OCR but to a graphics file capable of being processed by OCR. TIFF, unlike many other graphics formats allows multiple pages, which OCR software can handle.

    Presumably the Canon software will have OCR capabilities that produce a Word compatible RTF format. This is something that you must take up with Canon.

    You didn't mention which OCR software you used, but make no mistake OCR is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and not all OCR software is equal. One of the best is FineReader, which will make a fair stab at converting any scanned document and PDF formats.

    0 comments
  4. Charles Kenyon 166.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2011-10-16T03:20:29+00:00

    TIF files are graphics files, not text. http://filext.com/file-extension/TIF

    You could run an OCR program on them and end up with an .rtf .txt or .doc file depending on the program.

    0 comments