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Wordlinx Tutorial

The following is a step-by-step tutorial for using the Wordlinx program. Wordlinx is an optical character recognition (OCR) program for scanning text documents and converting them into an editable word processor format. Wordlinx will not make EXACT photocopy style copies of documents, nor will it scan any sort of forms, handwriting or graphics. To scan such items, consult Color It! Tutorial. For more information on how OCR works, see Understanding OCR.

1. Double-click on the hard disk icon to open it.
2. Locate the Wordlinx folder and double-click it.
3. Double-click the Wordlinx 2.0 icon.
4. The program will launch. If this is your first time using Wordlinx:

1. Enter your name and company (optional) when prompted to do so.
2. Click "OK."
3. Review the "Last Minute Information" and click "OK."

5. The Wordlinx logo appears. Click the Image menu and select "Scan."
6. The Scanner Controls and Preview Window will now appear. The Preview Window may contain an image from a previous scan. If this is your first use of Wordlinx, the Preview Window will contain a large "X."
7. Place a text document face down on the scanner glass and close the lid.
8. Click the Prescan button. The scanner will now begin moving.
9. When the scanner is finished, a miniature version of your document will appear in the Preview Window. This is not your final scan. Now you must set the scanning parameters.
10. On the Scanner Controls, located to the left of the preview window, you have areas labeled "Scan Mode" and "Resolution." For text scanning in Wordlinx these must be set on "Line Art" and 300 dpi. If they are not:

1. Click the box to the right of "Scan Mode" and choose Line art.
2. Click the arrows next to "Resolution" to move the scroll bar up and down until 300 dpi is displayed to the right.

11. Crop your image. The Preview Window contains a dotted-line rectangle called the crop box. This must completely frame your image of the page. Follow these steps to manipulate the crop box:

1. Click in the center of the crop box and hold down the mouse button. The arrow will become a closed fist and you will be able to drag the entire box around the Preview Window.
2. Click near the corner of your image and hold down the mouse button. Drag the mouse diagonally across your image to draw the crop box around it.
3. Click on each edge of the crop box. Your mouse will turn from an arrow to a double-ended arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the side of the box in and out, up and down.

12. Once your image is framed by the crop box, and your settings are on "Line Art" and 300 dpi, click the Scan button. The scanner will begin and then display a "Scanning Percent Completed" box.
13. When the scanning is complete, a image labeled "Untitled TIFF" will appear along with a set of OCR tools.
14. Click the Autoblock tool button. This is the middle button on the bottom row of the OCR tools.

Wordlinx Autoblock Tool

15. After clicking the Autoblock tool button, several numbered boxes will surround the text. Click the OCR button to begin the recognition process.
16. A dialog box titled "Recognizing: Untitled TIFF" will appear with the text moving through it.
17. When the recognition process is complete, an "Untitled Text" box will appear with the recognized text. From here you can edit, save, or print the file or cut and paste it to another word processor.
18. While looking at the document, you may see a character that looks like this ~. This is a tilde, and Wordlinx uses them to hold the place of characters that it did not recognize. You may also see characters out of place or replaced with the wrong character, such as a double quotation mark (") in place of an apostrophe (‘). OCR programs like Wordlinx are not 100% accurate in their recognition process, and they will miss a few characters. If they miss too much, try the following troubleshooting tips:

1. Rescan the image at 400 dpi. Sometimes the type is too small to be clear at 300 dpi.
2. Make sure the page is lined up straight in the scanner. If it is crooked, it may cause characters to be unrecognized.
3. If the page is a photocopy or print-out from a fax machine, the page may have broken characters or small black spots that would interfere with the OCR process. It may be impossible to get a good OCR of this document without a cleaner original.