ZJ.Mike.2009 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm following an article (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/office/OCRSampleApplication.aspx) to try using OCR in ActivePerl 5.10.0 but without any luck. The following minimal code keeps failing at the Create step and I don't understand why. Any idea what's going on? Thanks :) 

use warnings;
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const;

Win32::OLE::Const->Load("Microsoft Office Document Imaging 12\.0 Type 
+Library") or die "Cannot use the Office 2007 OCR API";
my $miDoc = Win32::OLE->new('MODI.Document') or die "Cannot create a M
+ODI object";
$miDoc->Create('E:/ocr-test.tif') or die "Cannot open the file for OCR
+";

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Why the Create method keep failing using Office 2007 OCR API?
by RyuMaou (Deacon) on Mar 01, 2010 at 15:05 UTC
    When it fails, does it kick back a message that might point us in a direction?
[reply]

      RyuMaou, thank you for the readiness to help and sorry, I think I have made a mistake there. Now it looks like the Create method is actually okay. I've realized that it loads the file just fine. But something is wrong with this line: 

      my $OCRresult = $miDoc->{Images}{'Item(0)'}{Layout}{Text};

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      I'm not sure how to write the following the Perl way.

      expression.Item(Index)

      Following is the whole test script. 

      use warnings;
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const;

Win32::OLE::Const->Load("Microsoft Office Document Imaging 12\.0 Type 
+Library") or die "Cannot use the Office 2007 OCR API";
my $miDoc = Win32::OLE->new('MODI.Document') or die "Cannot create a M
+ODI object";
$miDoc->Create('OCR-test.tif');
$miDoc->OCR(LangId =>'miLANG_ENGLISH');
my $OCRresult = $miDoc->{Images}{'Item(0)'}{Layout}{Text};
print $OCRresult;

      [download]
      Perl gives me the following error message:
      Use of uninitialized value $OCRresult in print
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        Problem solved. Something is wrong with my MODI 12.0 and I also messed with the OCR method parameters. Changing the line: 
        $miDoc->OCR();

        [download]
        to 
        $miDoc->OCR(2052,1,1); #2052 is the LangId for Chinese

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        can solve the problem but somehow if I use 
        $miDoc->OCR(9,1,1); #9 is the LangId for English

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        Windows XP would throw me an error saying: 
        unknown software exception

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        Anyway, thank you guys! I'm really happy that the problem is gone :D
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        "Item" is a method, you want something like: 
        my $OCRresult = $miDoc->{Images}->Item(0)->{Layout}{Text};

        [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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