Choice of printer with OCR and cheap inks

Could someone please recommend a printer for general use but one that has OCR on its installation disc and also one that uses cheap inks. My Epson SX115 was like this but it died.

OCR (or Optical Character Recognition) is for Scanners, OCR is the technology used to take a scanned document, and convert it to a text/word document..

Unless you mean an "all-in-one" when referring to a printer...

But either way, there are numerous options available for OCR software, some free, some cheap, some expensive... just google!

Some printers now use ink storage tanks instead of cartridges which helps with the cost abit.

I seem to remember getting a disk for OCR (Abbyy Fine Reader) with one printer that I bought but that was a long time ago. Do they provide installation disks with printers these days? I've had my Epson all in one for a few years now but cannot recall getting a disk with it. I've set it up on different computers since purchase and have never used an installation disk - the drivers etc are all on the website, including the ones for wireless networking.

Anyway, when I have needed OCR I use the one that is built into Microsoft Office. Seems to work reasonably well.

just bought an epson 225 wireless printer from comp at handsworth about £60 prob cheaper on amazon . instalation disc with it and has 4 seperate ink cartridges // only £10 a set on e/bay seems okay / just remember to take your old printer off in wireless and printers prog before instalation

i have a brand new printer for sale in the Ads section on here, it is also possible to run a continuous ink system from it very cheaply

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO P50 (BRAND NEW) Never used

The perfect partner for your D-SLR or compact camera

Photos look better and last longer than those from a lab

Borderless printing up to A4 size

Photos last up to 98 years in a frame or over 200 years in an album*2

Print directly onto suitable CDs/DVDs

Save money with individual inks - only replace the colour used

With many ink carts original and compatibles

Pick up only S2 Area, Arbourthorne

Bought an Epson XP445 all-in-one wireless printer a while ago and am very pleased with it, cost about £50. It will do OCR with with ABBYY FineReader which is supplied. A double set of high capacity compatible cartridges + 2 extra blacks (10 in total) costs £25 from internet-ink.com and work perfectly.

I think which? magazine also gave it a good review.

OK I see. I don't really mean "on its installation disc." Sorry folks, I was confused at the time I wrote this post. I see now that I can get any OCR program I need free. So, what I meant to say is that I don't have Microsoft Office and because all the OCR programs I've seen need to offload into Microsoft Word I can't use them. What I need then is an OCR program that can offload its scanned and read document to AbiWord, which is the only decent word program I have. I did try to offload into Open Office Word-equivalent but ABBYY Finereader Sprint wouldn't do it. Does anyone know of an OCR program that will offload its scanned and read document into AbiWord? All this is in addition to needing a new printer. Thanks for your suggestions. I'm looking into them now, especially the Epson XP 445. Many thanks for that.

Is there anywhere in settings or options where you can change the association from Word to AbiWord?

Jomie, I'm still trying to do that but so far I haven't managed to move the read scans to AbiWord or to Open Office. Still trying on and off.

There is FreeOCR ( first link ), I downloaded it and did a quick test on my W10 preview machine, it appears to be ok.

Export options are M$ Word, RTF and Text. The second link is a search for OCR test documents, there are lots of them

http://www.paperfile.net/download.html

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=OCR+test+documents&client=firefox-b&dcr=0&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=uz_m_OoVEY2nWM%253A%252Cef0pkXHQ9wPXvM%252C_&usg=__GVI4ywpHSHfpL4NHrDTD5opO4vc%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxweqIoJjYAhWiAMAKHSGvDZ8Q9QEIMjAB#imgrc=uz_m_OoVEY2nWM:

What about AbiWord, Mikes10. Will it transfer to AbiWord? OK I can find out for myself but while I'm on topic, what are RTF and Text?

---------- Post added 23-12-2017 at 13:40 ----------

Is there anywhere in settings or options where you can change the association from Word to AbiWord?

I can't see it.

---------- Post added 23-12-2017 at 13:50 ----------

Bought an Epson XP445 all-in-one wireless printer a while ago and am very pleased with it, cost about £50. It will do OCR with with ABBYY FineReader which is supplied. A double set of high capacity compatible cartridges + 2 extra blacks (10 in total) costs £25 from internet-ink.com and work perfectly.

 

I think which? magazine also gave it a good review.

Thank you apelike. I'm considering this one but the inks aren't exactly cheap when you consider that ebay offers 30 new inks for £10 for the Canon MG 6650 printer for example. It seems to me that the cheaper printers only have medium to semi expensive inks available and the likes of the MG6650 have cheap inks. Do you think perhaps the ink prices have been considered in the design of the semi expensive and expensive printers so as to make the printer more attractive to a buyer? If that's true then I will never find a perfect combination of cheap printer with cheap ink availability.