[stoneage]

I am unable to make an editable document using TextEdit or Word. I have a jpg that I try to import into the program, but it opens a mish-mash of symbols. I have tried changing formats etc., but nothing seems to work. I am trying to make a plain document that I can alter for changing conditions.
[image]http://24.118.196.224/~williamoreilly/safety.pdf[/image]

[Chuckit]

You're importing the JPEG by dropping it into the document window?

[stoneage]

Yes. It is just a safety form that I scanned to file. When I try to drop it on Text Edit the beachball spins and then rejects the jpg. Word copies it to a new .doc but I am unable to alter it. I have to enter new info at times. Maybe I'm mistaken in thinking I can rewrite these documents. It is the first time I have ever had to do this.

[TETENAL]

TextEdit will only accepts JPEGs dropped into it if the document is in rich text format (with the ruler visible on top) not in plain text format. Check the Format menu. TextEdit should not beachball either way. When it bechballs open Activity Monitor select TextEdit and select the menu Process->Analyse.

Word should continue to allow editing a document after you inserted a JPEG.

It appears something is wrong with your system. Try to repair permissions with Disk Utility.app. If that doesn't help do an Archive & Install of the operating system.

[cpac]

Originally posted by stoneage:
Yes. It is just a safety form that I scanned to file.

Just to be clear - you're not trying to edit the .jpg itself in Word or TextEdit, are you? (i.e., you didn't just drop a .jpg of a "safety form" into TextEdit and expect to be able to fill out that form, right?)

[stoneage]

I guess that is what I was trying to do. I thought by making a new document it would give me editing privileges. Like I said, I have never done this before. Thanks for any help.

[cpac]

Originally posted by stoneage:
I guess that is what I was trying to do. I thought by making a new document it would give me editing privileges. Like I said, I have never done this before. Thanks for any help.

Ok - that's the problem then.

A .jpg is a picture format. It doesn't know about text or anything - just pixels and what color they are. (You might as well drop a picture of a squirrel or something into TextEdit - it can be there, it's just that TextEdit can't edit picture files).

So the problem is not with "editing privileges" or anything like that...


However, there IS a solution:

In Word, you can use an image as a "background" image. This is intended to allow you to use watermarks and the like. However, you may be able to put the form in as background image and then fill it out.

However, this will only work if the form is blank - if it's already filled out and you want to edit it, you will need to do one of two things:

(1) Find a blank version of it and use that in the way described above, or:

(2) buy/use some "OCR" software - OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, and it analyzes picture formats (like .jpg or .tiff) and finds patters of colors it thinks look like letters. This has gotten pretty sophisticated, but it's still not perfect. Your scanner may have come with some OCR software, in which case I'd suggest trying that before purchasing another option.

[stoneage]

I'm trying Omni Page Pro, but it is really hard to get the formatting right. Thanks for the help. Now I have something else to learn.