heisspf@skyinet.net wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> How can one convert a text document which has been scanned and therefore
> has become a
> .gif file back to a .txt file in order that one can copy and paste text
> from it.

This is the job of OCR software, as mentioned.

> I was told it can be done with some software in windows. Is there such
> software in
> Linux?

Yes, but it's not up to the mark. I did some research on Freshmeat
some time ago. I recommend, if this is a one-time thing, getting the
OCR done at a shop.

> I was able to convert a .gif file in question to .pdf and open it with
> acroread. Acroread has an option to convert to text, however, trying to do
> it I get an empty file.

Basically the image is being embedded, pixel by pixel, into a PDF
file. The conversion program doesn't understand that the image is
showing English (?) text, and neither does Acroread. Acroread's
convert to text feature usually works because usually PDF files
contain text. You can verify this by opening a sampling of PDF files
with `less'. Then try opening your scanned image's PDF file with
`less'. You won't see the scanned text, but you will see a truckload
of gibberish data -- more or less the pixel-by-pixel description of
the image.

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