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pctechtv
Inspiring
February 15, 2022
Question

Make OCR on text impossible.

  • February 15, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 451 views

I am looking for a way to make text not readable via OCR. I was wondering if there are any techniques that are good for this. To be clear on an 8.5 x 11 page I want to create a printed document that a human can read. However, if the document is inserted into a scanning device (copier, scanner, etc.) I do not want the result to produce readable text. I also need it to be as close to the size of business letter text as possible. I was thinking there could be a way to dither the text so that would confuse the scanning device. I also wonder if I could cover it with a film, or any other method. The only thing necessary is that a human can read the text. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks

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1 reply

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 16, 2022

pctechtv,

 

My first thoughts were that yoou could try with differently coloured dots which can however hit folk with different kinds of colour blindness (they might appear much like colour blindness tests), or with distressed text which can however distress many/all readers.

 

It may very well be a hopeless endeavour, like locked/uneditable artwork.

 

pctechtv
pctechtvAuthor
Inspiring
February 16, 2022

Hi thanks for the reply. I like will explore that idea of colored dots. I am not familiar with distressed text. What is that? Thanks so much.

 

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 16, 2022

pctechtv,

 

Something like these,

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=distressed+text+font&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=images

 

It can (also) be done with any font used as a Clipping Mask over a distressed texture,

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=distressed+texture&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=images

 

And here a bit about colour blindness tests,

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=colour+blindness+test&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=images