Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques are steadily improving their performance, to the point that recovering large amounts of paper data for digital use is becoming cost-effective. Certainly, combining OCR and CAT tools would drastically increase the value of past translations available only on paper (until now).

This article describes the scenario and outlines an important idea: choice of the right OCR software is partly determined by the languages you are going to handle. (It includes also a list of software packages and the languages they are suitable for). The article is published by Language Partners International.

This article compiles translators' experiences using OCR software as a productivity tool in their daily work. It has been compiled with contributions from users of catmt@egroups.com, a mailing list devoted to translation and technology.

A site devoted to OCR: shareware, freeware, open source projects, demos, reviews and links.