How do I scan a paper into my computer to use in email?

Can I scan a piece of paper onto my computer and take the words from it and put them into word?

• I need to copy up some coursework, a total of around 8 pages. Is there any way to use a scanner to scan the piece of paper onto my computer and then take the words off so I can paste them into word? P.S.The coursework is already typed up on paper , but I don't have an electronic version saved (hence why I need to copy it all up)

• Answer:

  You could run what’s called an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program (one may have come with the scanner) on the scan and convert it to text that Word can handle, but OCR is an art, not a science. I can almost guarantee that you will have to fix: 1. Mis-converted fonts. 2. Mis-read characters (i for l, for instance, o, 0 or Q mixups) 3. Mangled layout. The scanned document, as a Word file, may look nothing like the paper copy. Depending on the document’s layout, you might spend a lot of time getting it close to what the original looked like. Good luck if you do try it.