I want to scan in a form and fill it out. I'm frustrated!

[Sygna]

I have vista and word office pro 2003. I am really getting disgusted with not
being able to scan a form to fill out. How do I do this?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Dear Robo,
Thanks for the response. What I have is a form from the VA that needs to
be filled out. My H/P scanner will scan it in using any of several formats,
and my Word 2003 says to use a TIFF, so I did. When I tried to open it in
Word, I got gibberish. Acrobat, of course, won't let me fill in the blanks. I
am starting to feel really stupid here. I used to have a very small program
called 'Fill-A-Form". it was primitive, but it did the job, then I had a
crash and it went to the Cosmic Bit-bucket. Something tells me I should just
fill it out by hand... any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Sygna

When you scan a form, the resulting file is a graphics file, not a Word file.
That's why you can't open it in Word. You could *insert* it into a Word
document, using the Insert > Picture > From File command, but it would still be
just a picture and you wouldn't be able to fill in the blanks.

If you're sticking with Word (probably not a good idea), you'll have to click
the picture, click the Text Wrapping button on the Picture toolbar, and choose
Behind Text. Then you'll have to insert a text box over each form blank to let
you type in information. For a fairly complicated form, this becomes very
tedious and time-consuming.

It looks like this might be the program you had before:
http://www.sharewareconnection.com/fillaform-genie.htm but the download address
doesn't work anymore. Apparently the originator is out of business.

The only other program I'm aware of for scanning forms and turning them into
fillable documents is OmniForm (http://www.nuance.com/omniform/standard/), but
its price makes it worthwhile only if you scan a lot of forms.

Bottom line: use a pen.

 

[grammatim]

You should just fill it out by hand. Firstly, that's what they expect.

But when you scan it, you're making a "photograph" of a sheet of
paper, not a word processing document, and Word doesn't read
photographs.

 

[robo]

I see. My suggestion is open the form in Acrobat. Do you have Acrobat? Don't
use Reader.

View/Toolbars Typewritter.

You can type anywhere on the form.

Good luck

 

[Sygna]

"It's a form from the VA for information... I have to fill in the blanks.
Think I will do as suggested in another response, and 'use a pen'. LOL

 

[Graham Mayor]

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:08:01 -0700, Sygna

The only other program I'm aware of for scanning forms and turning
them into fillable documents is OmniForm
(http://www.nuance.com/omniform/standard/), but its price makes it
worthwhile only if you scan a lot of forms.

The learning curve forOmniForm is quite steep. It is not in the least
untuitive and I am not convinced by the results. ABBYY Finereader Corporate
6 came with a somewhat easier to use form filler, but it appears to have
been abandoned - or perhaps incorporated into ABBYY Flexicapture 8
http://www.abbyy.com/flexicapture/, which I have not yet evaluated.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[JR Hester]

If your scanner application includes the option to scan editable text, use
that option to create an editable copy. Older HP scanner software was a dream
in this respect. The PDF scanners only create an image as all the other
posters have mentioned.

GL

 

[grammatim]

It will take him 10 times as long to clean up the OCR output as it did
for him to fill out the form by hand. It's pretty likely that it isn't
straight prose all the way down the page! It's in columns and boxes
with different-length lines and checkboxes and all that.

 

[Sygna]

I am tussling now with the 'typewriter'. arrgghhh!

 

[Sygna]

Yes it is. i could just KICK myself for losing that old 'fill a form'
program. it was small and primitive... i had it for at least 12 years... but
it sure did a great job on any form.

 

[Graham Mayor]

I am tussling now with the 'typewriter'. arrgghhh!

You might have more success tussling with the pen with which the form was
intended to be used.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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