bantz@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (11/24/85)
Obviously digitizers like Thunderscan or Magic Eye aren't going to produce text, even if they produced a good image at the character level, which, by the way, they usually aren't capable of. Optical scanners in the $few thousand range typically read a particular list of (typewriter) fonts - IBM selectric Courier 10, etc. The only more general solution, to my knowledge, is the Kurzweil "intelligent" scanner, which can be trained to recognize any reasonable printed or typewritten font, including multiple fonts on a page. The Kurzweil will read -- not including training for the fonts -- close to a page per minute, but will still require occasional correction.