Hi all, thanks for reading this.  I live without short term-memory, so I don't know what day it is or what clothes I'm wearing or what I've eaten today.  Yes, both my verbal and visual memory for new info is pretty much null.  I went through vocational rehab after the encephalitis, and I can live independently and hold a job thanks to utilizing virtual memory.  Work is fine, as I keep electronic notes for everything.  As for home, keeping hard copies of everything made sense at first, but it's been several years since I lost my memory, and the papers are piling up.  It's leading to clutter, and if I need to "remember" something, I have to thumb through tons of papers in the filing cabinet.  Because of this, I need to find a good sheet-fed scanner, and I also need software that can allow me to initiate the scan of a document, prompt me for the next page once the previous one completes, and save the scan to a text-searchable PDF.  The PDF would show the actual scan image, and when I search for something in the PDF, the text embedded within it from the OCR would be queried.  I hope this makes sense; I literally don't remember what I've typed so far in this message, even though I've read it a few times.  Does anyone here have any suggestions for what I'm looking for?  If I've posted this in the wrong forum, I apologize, and if you know of the proper one to post this in, please let me know.  Thanks so much!

Joe
Cortical Dysplasia of the left medial temporal lobe in '75, encephalitis in the RMTL in '05For others who want to follow this thread, the following is a simple introduction.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003257.htm
OCR of hand written notes is terrible. Very, very bad.
Sad to say, the market for OCR HANDWRITTEN conversion is bald.
http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/26195-why-no-ocr-search-on-handwritten-notes/

How are your reading skills? Can you read your own writing out load?

May I respectfully recommend you use the Windows 7 Speech recognition program.
Dictate every hand written  note into a document, include keywords at the top. Give it any FILE name that might make sense. Don't worry. Almost any name not already used. Windows can locate files by content. Slow, but nit works well of DOC and TXT files anywhere in the computer. But is better if you keep the files in folders other than  program folders.

Later, The windows indexing feature can locate files with  words you can remember.

I am,  perhaps, not as forgetful as you. I rel a lot on the Windows search  to find documents that contain information I need later.

My personal experience with OCR is bad. I hate OCR. Sometimes I must use it, but only on printed documents.
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3VZnyKViC4

I hope this helps.
Thanks Geek-9pm for the reply.  The speech recognition you mentioned (whether with the OS or third party) will be good for handwritten notes.  It hadn't crossed my mind, and it's good advice that I'll give a try.  As for the OCR for things such as old bills, typed letters from the doctors, ETC, I'm leaning TOWARD ABBYY FineReader 11.  It's not exactly pocket change, but for the time and frustration it could save me today and in the upcoming years, I think it would be worth the $170.  I've utilized the trial period, and the OCR is actually quite good.  It had very little difficulty distinguishing between 1's and l's.  As for the scanner, I'll be sticking with my single-sheet CanoScan Lide 25 for a while, but one that sounds promising for the future is the Brother DSmobile 600.  It's a sheet-fed scanner, so it could help speed up the conversion process.  Thanks again!Here is my best recommendation.
For reasons that go way beyond what I can explain in a short note, buying OCR software is a poor investment.
OCR is best when it is bundled with a scanner or printer product. The cost of the OCR is distributed over the total cost of the print er er or scamper.

For under $200 you can get a very good all in one printer that has excellent OCR software. I think other members here will agree. That is the best best way  get top quality OCR and the best price.
CNET claims there is free stuff out there that works good.
http://download.cnet.com/FreeOCR/3000-10743_4-10717191.html

Some say HP is the best choice. Somewhere I saw this:
Quote

Chances are, you've already got OCR software - if you have office, then Microsoft Office Document Imaging comes with it under All Programs --> Microsoft Office --> Office tools.