Good programs for converting paper scans to text and/or directly to audio?

[ScienceNostalgia101]

So I have a job that lends itself well to being multi-tasked with audio, and while this has allowed me to explore a variety of podcasts, I can think of a more practical use yet... to listen to all the text files I have saved on my computer but haven't gotten around to listening to them such that I know which ones to keep, and/or listening to audio of the scanned, printed copies of my old journals from one of my previous jobs.

 

I have scanned paper copies of those, but the programs I've found haven't been good for converting them directly to text, let alone text that can be subsequently copied into a text to audio file. As well, individual RTF files are a hassle to open one by one and copy into text to audio programs one by one. Is there any program that could merge several dozen RTF files, for which the company selling it to be can be trusted with my credit card information?

[Sensei]

13 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I have scanned paper copies of those, but the programs I've found haven't been good for converting them directly to text, let alone text that can be subsequently copied into a text to audio file. As well, individual RTF files are a hassle to open one by one and copy into text to audio programs one by one.

Download universal automation tool AutoHotKey, and write a script.

https://www.autohotkey.com/

It has commands to click LMB, RMB,

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Click.htm

mouse move,

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/MouseMove.htm

send key press, and so on.

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Send.htm

I have used it with a web browser (Firefox but does not really matter) to get all the data I needed from websites with protections against crawlers like wget/curl.

In your case you should send ctrl-o, open the file, send ctrl-a, send ctrl-c, activate the text editor window, send ctrl-v, repeat.

 

Reading a line of text from a text file:

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/LoopReadFile.htm

Then you can paste it in the file requester (after sending ctrl-o)

Eventually, list directory to get file names:

https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/87864-get-list-of-files-in-selected-folder/

 

Use Sleep to introduce a delay (needed for many things, apps think a human is doing the work, not a bot!)

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Sleep.htm

(e.g., if you send a Page Down/Up/Home/End key, you must wait for the browser to update the window to retrieve data from the page (via screen-grabbing))

 

An interesting (and very commonly used) command:

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/ImageSearch.htm

e.g. open a web browser, make a screen-grab, cut out the icon with the thing you are interested in (e.g. PDF icon), and in the script search for it, send mouse move, send RMB and simulate click on "Save file as..." and repeat...

 

13 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Is there any program that could merge several dozen RTF files,

If you use AutoHotKey, any text editor will suffice...

13 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

for which the company selling it to be can be trusted with my credit card information?

It is free to use.

But if you like it and use it often, you can make a donation to the authors.

  

13 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

for which the company selling it to be can be trusted with my credit card information?

Buy from companies that offer PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay...

They will hide your credit card information.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Sensei

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Thank you so much! I'll look into AutoHotKey as soon as I get a chance!

[exchemist]

On 2/20/2022 at 10:31 PM, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So I have a job that lends itself well to being multi-tasked with audio, and while this has allowed me to explore a variety of podcasts, I can think of a more practical use yet... to listen to all the text files I have saved on my computer but haven't gotten around to listening to them such that I know which ones to keep, and/or listening to audio of the scanned, printed copies of my old journals from one of my previous jobs.

 

I have scanned paper copies of those, but the programs I've found haven't been good for converting them directly to text, let alone text that can be subsequently copied into a text to audio file. As well, individual RTF files are a hassle to open one by one and copy into text to audio programs one by one. Is there any program that could merge several dozen RTF files, for which the company selling it to be can be trusted with my credit card information?

It maybe be a bit of a tangent to your request but, when I retired, I was given a fantastic present by the team I worked with, which was software that scans a musical score and turns that into audio. I was able to use it to send music files to members of a choir I sang with, in which I could separate out the various voices in the harmony, so each could learn their part. It was called Sibelius. I think there are several on the market.