I use some software called TypeMaster Pro, or something very close to that with an old monochrome legal size scanner with sheetfeeder, namely a Microtek 300, which I've had for about 10 years. I normally plunked a manual in the feeder (once the binding was cut off) and scanned all the odd, then all the even pages. It rejects the pictures, of course, but you only have to nurse it through the first 10 or so pages, by which time it's learned the font and punctuations in common use in the manual and can do the rest more or less by itself. Unfortunately it has to be retrained for the second pass. What it does is pretty slick, though, in that it looks at the alignment and actually straightens out a sheet which has been fed crooked. It can't replace text it didn't see, but it does a pretty good job. One of my colleagues made a quick machine readable copy of the State's revised statutes in order to investigate a case in which he was involved. It required less than half a day for him to do that. Dick ---------- <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> than closeup packages