e-reading limitations
Dear all: I use to digitalize documents to facilitate my students access to information. It is also quite useful when working with virtual classrooms (i.e. Moodle or Blackboard). Unfortunatelly I have found an unexpected problem: With MSOffice suite 2003, Microsoft used to include a program called MS Document Imaging produced under licensce of Scan Soft Inc. It is a *.tif reader which is quite useful (pro versions include tools like underline and notes). Big trouble is that MS decided to exclude it from MSOffice suite 2007, so many of my students are blocked when getting to read. Does anyone of you know about a TIF document reader which is free and has a decent quality? NOTE: Adobe reader does not reconise TIF as it is the competitors' format. Thanks for your help. Cristian Berrio Zapata
Hm, I usually write the file format "TIFF," but I think we're talking about the same thing. And oddly, according to Wikpedia, at least, Adobe now owns TIFF. From Wikipedia: Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a container format for storing images, including photographs and line art. It is now under the ownership of Adobe. Originally created by the company Aldus[1] for use with what was then called "desktop publishing," TIFF is a popular format for color and black and white images. The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications, by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition and other applications. [2] Adobe Systems, which acquired Aldus, now holds the copyright to the TIFF specification. So it would seem to me that Microsoft was not allowed to include the TIFF reader functionality, or decided to exclude it out of animosity toward Adobe. Either way, something political, I'm sure. A quick google for "tiff reader" yielded this page, for a Windows-based TIFF viewer called "Brava." http://www.tiffviewer.com/download.htm Good luck, and I look forward to others' suggestions. Conor Cristian Berrio Zapata wrote:
Dear all:
I use to digitalize documents to facilitate my students access to information. It is also quite useful when working with virtual classrooms (i.e. Moodle or Blackboard). Unfortunatelly I have found an unexpected problem:
With MSOffice suite 2003, Microsoft used to include a program called MS Document Imaging produced under licensce of Scan Soft Inc. It is a *.tif reader which is quite useful (pro versions include tools like underline and notes). Big trouble is that MS decided to exclude it from MSOffice suite 2007, so many of my students are blocked when getting to read.
Does anyone of you know about a TIF document reader which is free and has a decent quality?
NOTE: Adobe reader does not reconise TIF as it is the competitors' format.
Thanks for your help.
Cristian Berrio Zapata _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Thanks for your input. You are right, TIF and TIFF are the same. This format has something that I have not found in adobe acrobat (version 6.0): the possibility of editing part of the text as image (i.e. to eliminate steins or blank spaces within a single scanned page or picture). MS Document Imaging includes OCR so it is possible to turn image into characters and produce search. This format was supposed to be Microsoft's avatar against Adobe but if failed to become the market standard (although some data bases like JSTOR offer this format additional to PDF). I suspect that this is why they deleted from MSOffice 2007. Readers are a magnificent tool for knowledge exchange and sharing, but I have found that (at least for developing countries), the costs of licenses make them not as popular as required. This means that academic communities in Latin America (my case) do not master the tool and worst, have no access to it due to cost (Acrobat Reader is free but does not let you work the text with comments and marks; for that you require adobe acrobat or acrobat pro at a rate of USD$ 449 ). A little sample of digital divide where we need a free software solution (yeah, as in FREE or at least not expensive. Why des not Adobe produce something like Microsoft's Campus Agreement so we can access legally their products at competitive price. A Vista Pro copy under this license is around USD $20). -----Mensaje original----- De: Conor Schaefer [mailto:conor.schaefer@gmail.com] Enviado el: jueves, 11 de octubre de 2007 10:23 a.m. Para: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; cristian.berrio@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Air-L] e-reading limitations Hm, I usually write the file format "TIFF," but I think we're talking about the same thing. And oddly, according to Wikpedia, at least, Adobe now owns TIFF. From Wikipedia: Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a container format for storing images, including photographs and line art. It is now under the ownership of Adobe. Originally created by the company Aldus[1] for use with what was then called "desktop publishing," TIFF is a popular format for color and black and white images. The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications, by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition and other applications. [2] Adobe Systems, which acquired Aldus, now holds the copyright to the TIFF specification. So it would seem to me that Microsoft was not allowed to include the TIFF reader functionality, or decided to exclude it out of animosity toward Adobe. Either way, something political, I'm sure. A quick google for "tiff reader" yielded this page, for a Windows-based TIFF viewer called "Brava." http://www.tiffviewer.com/download.htm Good luck, and I look forward to others' suggestions. Conor Cristian Berrio Zapata wrote:
Dear all:
I use to digitalize documents to facilitate my students access to information. It is also quite useful when working with virtual classrooms (i.e. Moodle or Blackboard). Unfortunatelly I have found an unexpected problem:
With MSOffice suite 2003, Microsoft used to include a program called MS Document Imaging produced under licensce of Scan Soft Inc. It is a *.tif reader which is quite useful (pro versions include tools like underline and notes). Big trouble is that MS decided to exclude it from MSOffice suite 2007, so many of my students are blocked when getting to read.
Does anyone of you know about a TIF document reader which is free and has a decent quality?
NOTE: Adobe reader does not reconise TIF as it is the competitors' format.
Thanks for your help.
Cristian Berrio Zapata _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I'm not sure that I'm completely following the message below but there are a number of free alternatives for creating PDFs in the MS Windows environment. OpenOffice SaveAs PDF natively. I've used CutePDF for years as well. The free Irfanview program allows viewing of almost any format of media. Charlie Balch Professor of CIS Arizona Western College -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Cristian Berrio Zapata Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:20 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Possible Foreign Spam: Re: [Air-L] e-reading limitations Thanks for your input. You are right, TIF and TIFF are the same. This format has something that I have not found in adobe acrobat (version 6.0): the possibility of editing part of the text as image (i.e. to eliminate steins or blank spaces within a single scanned page or picture). MS Document Imaging includes OCR so it is possible to turn image into characters and produce search. This format was supposed to be Microsoft's avatar against Adobe but if failed to become the market standard (although some data bases like JSTOR offer this format additional to PDF). I suspect that this is why they deleted from MSOffice 2007. Readers are a magnificent tool for knowledge exchange and sharing, but I have found that (at least for developing countries), the costs of licenses make them not as popular as required. This means that academic communities in Latin America (my case) do not master the tool and worst, have no access to it due to cost (Acrobat Reader is free but does not let you work the text with comments and marks; for that you require adobe acrobat or acrobat pro at a rate of USD$ 449 ). A little sample of digital divide where we need a free software solution (yeah, as in FREE or at least not expensive. Why des not Adobe produce something like Microsoft's Campus Agreement so we can access legally their products at competitive price. A Vista Pro copy under this license is around USD $20). -----Mensaje original----- De: Conor Schaefer [mailto:conor.schaefer@gmail.com] Enviado el: jueves, 11 de octubre de 2007 10:23 a.m. Para: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; cristian.berrio@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Air-L] e-reading limitations Hm, I usually write the file format "TIFF," but I think we're talking about the same thing. And oddly, according to Wikpedia, at least, Adobe now owns TIFF. From Wikipedia: Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a container format for storing images, including photographs and line art. It is now under the ownership of Adobe. Originally created by the company Aldus[1] for use with what was then called "desktop publishing," TIFF is a popular format for color and black and white images. The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications, by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition and other applications. [2] Adobe Systems, which acquired Aldus, now holds the copyright to the TIFF specification. So it would seem to me that Microsoft was not allowed to include the TIFF reader functionality, or decided to exclude it out of animosity toward Adobe. Either way, something political, I'm sure. A quick google for "tiff reader" yielded this page, for a Windows-based TIFF viewer called "Brava." http://www.tiffviewer.com/download.htm Good luck, and I look forward to others' suggestions. Conor Cristian Berrio Zapata wrote:
Dear all:
I use to digitalize documents to facilitate my students access to information. It is also quite useful when working with virtual classrooms (i.e. Moodle or Blackboard). Unfortunatelly I have found an unexpected problem:
With MSOffice suite 2003, Microsoft used to include a program called MS Document Imaging produced under licensce of Scan Soft Inc. It is a *.tif reader which is quite useful (pro versions include tools like underline and notes). Big trouble is that MS decided to exclude it from MSOffice suite 2007, so many of my students are blocked when getting to read.
Does anyone of you know about a TIF document reader which is free and has a decent quality?
NOTE: Adobe reader does not reconise TIF as it is the competitors' format.
Thanks for your help.
Cristian Berrio Zapata _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
On 12/10/2007, Cristian Berrio Zapata <CRISTIAN.BERRIO@cable.net.co> wrote:
A little sample of digital divide where we need a free software solution (yeah, as in FREE or at least not expensive. Why des not Adobe produce something like Microsoft's Campus Agreement so we can access legally their products at competitive price. A Vista Pro copy under this license is around USD $20).
Hi Cristian I'm not sure about the OCR aspects - as I'm guessing your scanner mayn't have come with the requisite software - mine had OCR software with it (though I think that it was designed to be then dumped into a WordProcessing package, rather than saved as a .TIFF. A few thoughts though, as it's scanned documents you're talking about, could you leave Office 2003 on the PC so that you can create the documents that you want, or are you considering the students that mayn't be able to read the documents that you create? As far as the annotating goes, a couple of thoughts - have a look at Agilix GoBinder - they have a free version. It's designed for a tablet PC, and it lets you annotate things like Word Docs. I can't remember the exact details of what it does, as it's on my tablet - which is at work. However, you can use the mouse to do the annotating, albeit not as easily as a pointer. There are other low cost annotation tools designed for tablets which might work. Another idea - not sure if it works with Word 2007, as I've only used it with Word 2003, is to install MS's tool for converting Word Docs to MS Reader format; as the Reader tool lets you annotate/ make notes in the books you create. (It's also designed for ease of reading onscreen, so lets you adjust the contrast between text & background a lot). Depending on how much time you've got, perhaps you could scan your docs & use the scanner's OCR software to dump to word, then save as Reader format. I suspect, though, that this might take a bit longer than your older method. -- Emma Duke-Williams: School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator. New URL: Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
Really many thanks for your input Emma. Will look for some of the tools you mention. Although some comments about teaching in pregrad in Bogota, Colombia (South America) 1. People are not quite into reading from the PC. Altough that is not only an item here but in many other parts of the world, the diference may be regarding the "easiness" that my students perceive when they face the PC and any of these "gadgeting isues". Administration students are not the "cyber-nerdie" type so pushing the key and not having an instant display of the text becomes a tragedy. Some of them had discovered "Brava" software (some colleage also recommended) but that is a seldom case. 2. I try to push them into ICTs (we use Moodle, web based exams and things like that), as I do believe digital proficiency is a must. On the other hand, I handle about 180 students (colombian universities can be pretty pushing on getting as much from you as possible on this regard). Therefore I need tools to maximise eficiency. Paperless exchange of readings should be more efficient that ton of photocopies BUT, we come to little nonsences like this of the TIFF vs PDF that increase the cost of knowledge transaction incredibly. Maybe this is what marvels about technology: complexities are so human... Good news is that I looked again at Adobe site and found a special offer that lowers down Adobe Pro cost from $630 to $163... Saludos! -----Mensaje original----- De: Emma Duke-Williams [mailto:emma.dukewilliams@gmail.com] Enviado el: sábado, 13 de octubre de 2007 11:42 a.m. Para: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; cristian.berrio@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Air-L] e-reading limitations On 12/10/2007, Cristian Berrio Zapata <CRISTIAN.BERRIO@cable.net.co> wrote:
A little sample of digital divide where we need a free software solution (yeah, as in FREE or at least not expensive. Why des not Adobe produce something like Microsoft's Campus Agreement so we can access legally their products at competitive price. A Vista Pro copy under this license is around USD $20).
Hi Cristian I'm not sure about the OCR aspects - as I'm guessing your scanner mayn't have come with the requisite software - mine had OCR software with it (though I think that it was designed to be then dumped into a WordProcessing package, rather than saved as a .TIFF. A few thoughts though, as it's scanned documents you're talking about, could you leave Office 2003 on the PC so that you can create the documents that you want, or are you considering the students that mayn't be able to read the documents that you create? As far as the annotating goes, a couple of thoughts - have a look at Agilix GoBinder - they have a free version. It's designed for a tablet PC, and it lets you annotate things like Word Docs. I can't remember the exact details of what it does, as it's on my tablet - which is at work. However, you can use the mouse to do the annotating, albeit not as easily as a pointer. There are other low cost annotation tools designed for tablets which might work. Another idea - not sure if it works with Word 2007, as I've only used it with Word 2003, is to install MS's tool for converting Word Docs to MS Reader format; as the Reader tool lets you annotate/ make notes in the books you create. (It's also designed for ease of reading onscreen, so lets you adjust the contrast between text & background a lot). Depending on how much time you've got, perhaps you could scan your docs & use the scanner's OCR software to dump to word, then save as Reader format. I suspect, though, that this might take a bit longer than your older method. -- Emma Duke-Williams: School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator. New URL: Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
participants (4)
-
Charlie Balch -
Conor Schaefer -
Cristian Berrio Zapata -
Emma Duke-Williams