Is there any OCR application which can read Arabic text ? Or is it only for Roman characters ?

Answer 1

Several questions on this subject have come up recently.

The answer is probably yes, but it depends on what you are trying to do. I would suggest looking at the wikipedia page first for OCR--some of the software companies listed there state that they support Arabic OCR (to include other related languages like Persian).

My understanding is that Arabic is difficult because of the way in which it is scripted. However, about half a dozen companies claim varying degrees of accuracy with their technologies. A lot depends on image quality. If you take one of the Redirs "pens" and scan perfectly straight lines on a perfectly straight page of perfectly clear text, you'll probably get a good result. If you do the same and your hand jerks and the image is a bit faded, you'll probably get junk.

You also haven't stated which script you want to process--is this a newspaper or a fax, or is this Kufic writing? I think the LP is correct that no software exists for ancient scripts.

Based on the SDIUT proceedings, companies like NovoDynamics and BBN are working on the technology (www.novodynamics.com) (www.bbn.com), though I think only the former has a finished product. If you check the cached version of that SDIUT link you'll see a list of speakers and their companies.

Failing the stuff below, you can always call them and ask for an evaluation (and see if some of the other recent questions help at all)

Answer 2

HI,
As you know the technology of OCR programs is very clever and also complicated and as far I know there is no OCR software for the other languages except English.

Answer 3

There are. but they are so poorly developed that it will make you want to smash the monitor. I ve tried it and is actually no good.