Re: [hylafax-users] DID vs. OCR/Barcode Was: routing received faxes to clients

[Bill Binko <bill-sender-4b2fd6@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 7 Jul 2004, Ted Egan wrote:

> Ted Replied to All Recipients:
>
> In my case the problem is much more difficult.  The "clients" are directories
> on a web server, and the faxed-in documents have to be routed to the
> appropriate directory.  Further, the document must be stored in pdf format
> and a database table updated with the directory, client, pdf filename and
> document type.

Actually, this is pretty typical for document management w/Hylafax.  It's
exactly how we do attachments now.

>
> Since the main application is web-based (apache/php/mySQL on linux, or LAMP if
> you're into buzzwords) I have the luxury of forcing people to download a
> cover sheet before faxing the document.  Since I will be able to control the
> cover sheet fonts, I should be able to come up with a font that gives me a
> recognizable control number.

I think it's safe to say it will be easier to find a barcode font that can
be read effectively than an OCR font.  Remember that you're working at fax
resolution here (100x100 or 100x200 - very few customer will be nice
enough to fax at superfine).

>
> At least that's the plan.  There is windows-based software that can convert
> PDF to text, but not much available for linux.  If I have to, I'll hang a
> windows comptuer on the network or use Wine to handle the conversion, but
> thinking about makes me want to go hide in the nearest bar.
>

I'd be careful here: there are lost of programs that will read the text
out of a PDF: _if_ there is text in the PDF.  PDFs come in two styles:
wrappers around a PostScript file (which is just text + display
instructions), and wrappers around images (such as those received by
Hylafax).  If there's a program on Windows that reads the second type (the
images) its effectively doing OCR on the image.  Reading the text-based
PDFs is actually far easier on *nix (see pdf2txt, pdf2ascii, etc).

Bill


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