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Re: FAX-to-Order Software?
You are correct, William. You must have the capability to specify a zone
template or mask for the incoming fax. The tool must support it as well as a
way of determining the proper template to use if you are going to operate in a
batch environment. This may be done through the use of a recognition zone.
Since by law all USA faxes must have an identifier in the fax header, I suspect
this might provide the ID to retrieve the proper template.
I believe ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 12 has these capabilities as well as XML output
and batch processing. They also offer development packages containing the
pieces to roll your own. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the commercial
packages used their kits. Microsoft did in implementing some OCR features in
Word XP. I'm going to try and locate a copy and give it a text run.
The ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 12 User Guide is available online at
http://support.scansoft.com/manuals/download.asp
Jim Divoky
EC Solutions, Inc.
> Jim,
>
> I'd be very interested in learning about any software you might find that
> can do this. The challenge I see in doing this is that if each customer
> has their own system, the orders received via fax will have variations in
> the text used to specify a purchase order number, date, and other data.
> Not all fields will be positioned and/or named the same on incoming
> orders. Without using some form of AI algorithm to process these and
> train the system on the format of commonly used purchase order formats,
> and without using some kind of pre-defined format (such as required by the
> Ironside software from what I can tell), I would think that any kind of
> text-recognition software would have a tough time processing orders.
>
> If you are able to find something though, I'd love to hear about it. If
> you can by chance find software to recognize purchase order text on
> scanned image file formats (TIFF, PDF, GIF, JPEG), I can help you to find
> a solution for automated fax -> image conversion -- that's easy enough.
> Come to think of it, if you can get ahold of a package that can translate
> via OCR text in an image to ASCII text in an automated fashion (via UNIX
> shell script or Windows scheduler), you might be able to use clever
> regular expressions to do this, although I do forsee much involved work.
>
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 wrote:
>
> > William, The client already has sophisticated online catalog ordering
> > capabilities. Some customers want to enter the order in their system,
> > print it, and fax it in. It would be nice if all purchasing systems
> > could output a purchase order in a tagged data format. Even an email
> > attachment could be translated easily if the PO had some intelligible
> > format.
>
> > > Jim, have you considered using a web-based interface, instead? It
> > > seems to me as though a fax-to-order solution would cater to those who
> > > aren't EDI capable; however, almost all companies do have an Internet
> > > connection and would be able to submit orders via the web. Are there
> > > requirements that a web interface won't satisfy, or is it indeed a
> > > viable solution?
>
> > > > Is anyone aware of any commercial fax-to-order solutions? What I'm
> > > > referring to is the conversion of faxed orders into mapped data that
> > > > can be loaded into an order entry system with little or no user
> > > > intervention. An example of a full-blown commercial solution can be
> > > > seen at [...] {http://myturl.com/0006a}
>
> > > > I'm also considering OCR software that might provide a portion of a
> > > > solution that can be integrated into an existing automated order
> > > > entry solution. The OCR software would have to allow for the
> > > > creation of sender-specific maps to convert selected fields in the
> > > > faxed document into a defined data format such as XML, ANSI X12,
> > > > CSV, etc.
>
> -- _
> __ __ ___ _| | William R. Lorenz <
> \ V V / '_| | EC/EDI, Inc. <http://www.ecediinc.com/>
> \./\./|_| |_| EDI Outsourcing; VAN Services; B2B E-Commerce
>
>
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