> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Scott
>
> I am trying to simply scan applications or forms to my
> computer so that I can fill in text. I am using Microsoft XP
> home Edition and have a HP 2210 all in one scanner. I tried
> choosing (editable text document,text document and picture)
> and sending to My Documents,Word Pad and PDF file. I tried
> opening it to Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Works and Word
> Perfect. I tried opening and sending it to word pad and note
> pad. No matter which variation I use the document comes out
> distorted. In notepad it comes out with a million zeros and symbols.
> I have gone so far as purchasing an updated software disk
> from HP for my all in one printer-scanner, used the HP
> scubber program to completely erase the old software and
> nothing helps. Can you please help me?
> John
> [log in to unmask]

John,

"Simpy Scan" is somewhat of an oxymoron. It is never as simple as you feel
it should be! Scanning produces an image file. A picture, if you wish.
Depending on the software used, it might be one of several different
formats, or a proprietary format of the scanner/software combination.
Additional software can convert the image to text, columns, lines and
paragraphs, with varying degrees of success.

Since the original file is an image, you will not be able to open it with
any word processor/text editor program. If you convert the image file to a
text file, it will usually not look exactly like the original form you
scanned. There is software available specifically for scanning forms into
the computer to be filled out on the computer. If you are going to be doing
a lot of this type of work, you might look into purchasing one such as
OmniForm from Scansoft ($100). http://www.scansoft.com/omniform/standard/

If this is a one time deal, you might try loading the image into an image
editing program and entering text into the appropriate areas. It might take
some trial and error, but it should produce a workable image with overlaid
text you could print out.

I once produced a fill-in form using an image of the form in the background
of a Microsoft Word document and creating input fields in the foreground.
Not pretty, but it worked!

Hope this gives you some ideas to work with. Let us know if you need
additional help.

Jim Maki
[log in to unmask]

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