Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 May 24

= May 24 =

OCR scan to a text file, no interpretation
On my Windows system, I tried scanning some papers that are typed data in columns. There are also some blank gaps across the page. My scanner software seems to be based on ReadIRIS. I need to get it into an editable text file, as it appears on the paper. I tried scanning to a RTF but it gets the formatting wrong. I tried scanning to a text file (to WordPad) but it seems to think that each block (i.e. a column between the gaps) is a paragraph and interprets it that way. I want to read it to a text file and do OCR and not change the format in any way - do it "as is". There doesn't seem to be any option for that in my scanner software. Is there a way to do that? (If it could figure out where the columns are and put it in a spreadsheet, that would be OK too.) Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:53, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Some OCR software detects table data, some allows you to manually delimit it, some does neither. See http://www.google.com/search?q=tesseract%20table for potential gratis options. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I tried Tesseract. It did slightly better, but not good enough.  It was not confused by the horizontal breaks, but it still went down each column.  That is, all of the first column was first, followed by the second column, etc.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:23, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

SHGetFolderPathA error on NT 4.0
Hi, I have a program that I need to run on an nt 4.0 server, when I try to run it I get the message "Can't find DLL entry point SHGetFolderPathA in shell32.dll " and it fails to start. From what I can tell the only way to fix this without getting bsod's is to install ie4 service pack 2. Currently I have ie 6; but some components from ie4.01 are still around (and my shell32.dll is version 4.72; which should work, but apparently it may need to be 4.71 for nt...) At any rate, is the only method of doing this to roll back ie to 4.01sp2? Given that nt doesn't have "sticky" service packs/hotfixes, can this mess the os up? What are my odds of not getting the error should I proceed? And, finally, any other suggestions that won't likely kill the machine (I have no discs to reinstall...)? Any help is much appreciated:-) PS: I absolutely have to use this computer and this version of windows, upgrading is not option; nor is using another program to do the task (I'd just do that if it were possible.).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 08:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Take a look at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/microsoft.public.platformsdk.shell/gKWsvY8IKzc. Looie496 (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but I don't have the source for the program; is there a way to do it without that? Thank you:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 10:01, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you're trying run on NT an exe that was compiled for a later version of Windows, I think you're just screwed. Looie496 (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * For the most part, yes. However, there are ways to work around certain issues; some of them are risky given nt's nature. I know a handful of "risky" ways that will, probably, work; however, if they don't, the computer will likely break. I was just hoping someone might have a specific suggestion that minimizes risk and maximizes success; a lot of people have encountered this issue and their still a nice bit of nt servers out there, I'm sure someone has an answer...just not me. (if this reads weird, I'm very sleepy).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 19:14, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

win7 taskbar in revolt
So, now I appear unable to pin things to the taskbar in my win7 any more. i used to be able to pin things on it as demonstrated by the things still pinned, but now when i drag an icon there i get the little slashed circle thing, and when i right click on a program in the start menu it doesn't have the pin to taskbar menu item any more. i'm trying with notepad, so it's not some esoteric program or something, but it seems to be true of every program i'm trying it with. this is just a home version, i'm the only user either on windows or in reality, it boots straight into my user, so if there's an administrator there somewhere i don't know how to get to it? any advice? thanks. Gzuckier (talk) 17:03, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * When you right-click on the taskbar, is there a tick next to 'Lock the taskbar'? If so, untick it and try pinning again. Any joy? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:20, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * no, i forgot to mention, it's unlocked. i even tried locking it then unlocking it in case sometimes the ticks get unsynced with status (at least with hide taskbar), but no luck. thanks though. Gzuckier (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Check out this or this page. Looks like there are a variety of ways this can happen. --Yellow1996 (talk) 01:33, 25 May 2013 (UTC)