Kurzweil Automater- Mass Conversion of Files into K3000

Transcription

1 Kurzweil Automater- Mass Conversion of Files into K3000 The K3Automater is a program that is typically used by institutions who offer a scanning service to their students. It is designed for mass conversion of files captured by a high-speed scanner into.kes format. If you have a high speed scanner, it is often more efficient to use that scanner's software to scan your material rather than use Kurzweil The result of the scanning process is a set of TIFF files. Kurzweil 3000 Automater simplifies the process of converting those scanned TIFF files to KES files. The Automater can also be used to convert PDF files. When selecting a PDF it must be 300 dpi or better. If it s over 500 dpi the file may take a long time to convert to a Kes. Format. When would you want to use the Automater? The typical workflow for a customer using the K3Automater would go something like this: The customer has a high-speed scanner and a textbook that they wish to convert to.kes format, OR a file/series of files from a publisher (in TIFF or PDF format) containing images for each page of a book that they wish to convert to.kes format. TIFF and PDF are the formats supported by K3Automater since they allow for multiple page images in a single file. The K3Automater is configured to look for PDF or TIFF files in a specified directory on the system it is installed on (called the "Source Hierarchy"). It is also configured to place output KES files in a specified directory (called the "Destination Hierarchy"). These special folders are called Hierarchies since if there are multiple directories in the Source Hierarchy K3Automater will mirror that same directory structure in the Destination Hierarchy. This makes it easier for the customer to organize and locate specific files. Note that K3Automater must be installed on a machine which has a valid copy of Kurzweil 3000 Pro (Color or B/W) installed as well. If the customer is starting from a textbook, they run the textbook through the high-speed scanner and use the image capture software provided by the scanner manufacturer to capture images to 300-DPI PDF or TIFF files. The PDF/TIFF files that were received from the publisher or captured from the highspeed scanner are placed into the directory specified as the "Source Hierarchy" in the K3Automater program. Leave the machine on. Go get a cup of coffee. Better yet, go home for the night and check on it tomorrow.

2 The K3Automater will chug through all the PDF and TIFF files it finds in the Source Hierarchy, converting each to a KES file by running it through Kurzweil 3000 and placing the resulting file in the appropriate directory in the Destination Hierarchy. How to use the Automater Download the tool from: ftp://ftp.kurzweiledu.com/pub/tech/utilities/kurzweil_3000/win/auto mater/ /k3automater.zip To use the Automater: 1. Create a "source" folder on your hard drive (or elsewhere on your system), and place the TIFF and/or PDF files into it. 2. Create a "destination" folder on your hard drive (or elsewhere on your system). This is where you want Kurzweil 3000 to place the converted KES files. 3. Run K3Automater.exe on a system that has Kurzweil 3000 installed. The Kurzweil 3000 Automater dialog box appears. 4. Specify the folder which contains the TIFF and/or PDF files in the Source Hierarchy box, and the folder which you would like to use for the KES files in the Destination Hierarchy box. You can also use Browse to find the folders on your system or over your network. Note: If the Source folder contains a TIFF file and a PDF file with the same name, you will only get one.kes file in the Destination folder. 5. Specify or browse to the folder which you would like to use for the KES files in the Destination Hierarchy box. 6. If you want, you can use Command Arguments to instruct the Automater to perform additional tasks, such as deleting the source file after conversion. The default command argument -in:^s -out:^d -x, simply takes the source path and file name (^S) as input, and outputs it to the destination path and file name (^D). "-x" indicates the end of the command line. 7. Click OK.

3 When the Automater is done converting the files, it waits for more files in the Source folder. To stop the Automater, click Cancel. Notes: You can add more files to the Source folder while the Automater is converting existing files. You do not need to restart; it checks the source folder every few seconds for additional work. The Automater remembers the Source and Destination hierarchies you specify, so the next time you use it, these hierarchies appear in their respective boxes. If Kurzweil 3000 is configured to use the Ask for User at Startup option, you should use the -user:name command option. If you don't, you will be forced to log on each time the Automater begins to convert a file in the Source folder. Automater Command Arguments: -in:file name.foo file to open -out:file name.foo file to save -stat:file name.foo file to save recognition statistics -user:name change user name -x exit end the command line (must be last) -d delete previous "-in" file -2page turn on 2 page mode -autorotate force auto-rotate ON -rotate0 rotate 0 (disable auto-rotate) -despeckle force despeckle ON -nodespeckle force despeckle OFF -deskew force deskew ON -nodeskew force deskew OFF -despeckle force despeckle ON -nodespeckle force despeckle OFF Typical usage: -in: foo-bar.tif -out: my file.kes -d -x Notes: Currently -d applies only to TIF and PDF files. Currently only one file may be opened. Use full pathnames for -in and -out when running from a DOS command line. If the output file exists, it will be overwritten without warning. Filenames can contain "-" but not " -" (hyphen with a preceding space).

4 Viewing Automater Recognition The Automater's Statistics function can help you to determine the quality of the recognition process performed by the OCR engine selected in the Kurzweil 3000 Scanning Options pane. To view recognition statistics: Click the Automater's Statistics button. This opens the Recognition Statistics dialog box, which contains a number of statistics regarding the recognition of the files processed by the Automater. For each processed file, the following statistics are provided: The number of pages. The number of characters recognized. The Confidence Level. Interpreting the Confidence Level Confidence Level is a measure of how confident the system is about the recognition process. The higher the number, the more confident Kurzweil 3000 is regarding the accuracy of the recognition process. You can consider a Confidence Level of 95 as a borderline level between a good recognition and one that requires a visual inspection of the file.

5 When you inspect your files, look for some of the following recognition anomalies that may be affecting the confidence level: If the files were originally created via scanning, look for broken or touching characters. This could indicate that the original scanning brightness was too low. You'll need to edit the underlying text in order to correct these problems. In some cases, the OCR engine might try to recognize text within a graphic and either fail completely or misrecognize the characters, causing a lower confidence level number. However, this may or may not be important to you, since you might not want this type of text read anyway. If you don't want the text read, and Kurzweil 3000 is reading it (poorly), use the Zone Editor to designate the area that the text appears in as a graphic.