The workflow is going to be adapted to allow the use of OCRed text as input. The OCR engine is going to be ​OCRopus.

​Tutorial video and ​other videos

The documents of the previous workflows were assessed in terms of how well they might perform being OCRed.

• Easy
  • ​Bernstein, 1897 (Fraktur)
  • ​Berzelius 1819
  • ​Ampère 1844
• Medium
  • ​Vitruvius 1511
  • ​Cataneo 1600
  • ​Aristoteles 1547 (italics)
  • ​Archimedes 1565 (many pictures (problematic?))
  • ​Cataneo 1572 (bad printing)
  • ​Viviani 1659
  • ​Bianconi 1746
  • ​Zanotti 1752
  • ​Bion 1765 (blackletter)
  • ​Vitruvius 1800 (clear, but weak printing, can see printing of the other side)
  • ​Gallaccini 1767 (small font, but quite clear)
  • ​Angeli 1668 (contains italics, otherwise very clear)
  • ​Trigault 1639
  • ​Bernoulli 1738
• Hard
  • ​Vitruvius 1544
  • ​Vitruvius 1757 (Mixed blackletter and antiqua)
  • ​Zonca 1656 (bad printing)
  • ​Bacon 1670 (contains italics, bad printing)
  • ​Clavius 1606
  • ​Barrow 1674 (bad printing, italics and Greek)
  • ​Gravesande 1721
  • ​Vitruvius 1618 (Thesaurus has columns)
  • ​Mersenne 1635 (Microfilm)
  • ​Aristoteles 1548 (contains Greek)
  • ​Vitruvius 1556 (extremly small font)
  • ​Aristoteles 1585 (bad printing)
  • ​Specklin 1599 (bad printing, blackletter)
  • ​Biancani 1635 (very small font)
  • ​Vitruvius 1567 (very small font, mixed italics and upright)
  • ​Archimedes 1565 (mixed italics and upright)

Command overview

The following commands (taken from above video) allow the recognition of English text:

1. ocropus-binarize 035.jpg
2. ocropus-pseg book/????.png
3. ocropus-lattices -m OCRopus/ocropy/2m2-reject.cmodel book/0001/??????.png
4. ocropus-align -l OCRopus/ocropy/data/default.fst book/0001/??????.fst
5. ocropus-hocr book/

First results

A page of Bacon 1670 (​link) was OCRed with above commands. The output does not look too good (xhtml file attached):

116
tha| yet it cannot be for other - Kcafo+: - ~r f1r(l, it is found 9tit upon
ccrta;n Trccs; and thofe Trces bear no fuch Fruit, os may allure that |rd to
B|rrics, and fo is of(cn found thcrc| which may have givcn occaf1on tothc
tale. But that which maketh an cnd of th|quc(lion is, that M1(Tcltoe hath
w|nld go into a Bv@gh( ?nd bcf1dcs/it feemcrh to bc morcfat and un@uous,
th1n the ordinary Sap of thc T!5c| both py thc Bcrry which is clammy, and
by that it connnucth grccn winter and Summcr, which Ihc Trcc do(h
not.
tryal would bc m-c,b|riPPing vf thc Bough of aCrab~cc inthe Ba~and
likely, to try it with fomeothcr watering or anointing, . that w7c notfonatu-
things askill not me Bongh.
1t wcrc good to try, what T\&nM would put forth, @ thcy bc fo|biddcn
Io p@tfottb thcir natn|l Boughs: powl thcreforc a Tree; .andcover it,(omc
will Dut forth Roots 9 for fo will a Cions, bcir@ turncd down into clav.
fhat is .not fo f1atnral to thcplant as Clay isg tryit with Lcathcr,or Clotb, or
becn knodn t|gtow o\&t of apol9rd-
.A Man may count the prickcs / Trccs to bcakinde d Excrcfccnce,for
the/will ncvcr be@onghs| nor be Lcaves. @c plants that have p.ricklcs,
are Thorns, Black and whitc. s Bryer, Rofc, Ltmmon"trecsv Crab-trccq
Pricklcs in thc Lc2f .are, H9lly5 Juniper, vhin .bu(h, ~hi(bc i Ncttlcs alfo
have a fiall vencmous Fr~Ici fo hath Borrage, but harmlefs. Thc . @ufc
For the ha@c of the5pirit to put "Th, a@d the w|9t ot nourimmcty toput
forth a Bough, and thc clof~fs of thc Balks caufc Frickles .in Bonghsg 0nd
the Leav@s othcrw.!fcarc Wygh,as Burragc and Nettles are. As (or thc Leavcs
of Holl)|, they arefmooth, but nevcr Plain, bnr asit wcrc with folds for thc2
amc caufc.
56o. Therc be alfo Tlots, thavhough the? havc no ?~kles, yet they havea
kinde of Downey 9r Velvct Rine upop their Leafes; as Refe-C\<mpi0@ |te~
Cdrh2isns,,