I haven't needed OCR for a while and have been happy with TextBridgePro in the past.

Now I am on XP, I need to get latest version but before I go and buy, does anyone know of or recommend any suitable/comparable freeware or shareware as an alternative?

Hi cgksheff try ' allchar ocr ' might help you.

Do you have Microsoft Office 2002 or 2003?

I believe Microsoft bundled OCR software with them.

30 day trial of Readiris here:

http://www.irislink.com/opt/uk/products/download/downgoogle.html

Thanks for the tips.

Yes, indeed Abdul. MS Document Imaging is there hiding in MS Office Tools. A bit basic but it works and it's free.

I found Allchar and downloaded it. It would appear to be OK but it's French and my brain didn't feel like the effort.

I've done what I needed to do (scan some plain text documents into Word) with the MS tool.

As fars as I understood it old versions of omnipage are free. one was on a cover disk. Its very good.

Most scanners tend to be shipped with some software - may be worth checking the CD(s) that came with your scanner.