If you have a scanner and want to avoid retyping your documents, use an OCR software.
Convert your scanned images to text files or Word documents with SimpleOCR–the only OCR (Optical Character Recognition) application that is completely free. SimpleOCR is also a royalty-free developer toolkit (a.k.a SDK or API) that you may use to add OCR to your custom software application.

SimpleOCR features include TWAIN scanning, ability to manually specify text and image zones, English, French and Dutch dictionaries, interactive correction with suggestions from dictionary, output to plain text or RTF (MS Word) formats and more.

Developers can use the SimpleOCR API to add OCR capabilities to their custom software.
A 15-day demo of Charactell’s Softwriting handprint recognition engine is also included. Machine print recognition has no limitations or advertisements.

Visit http://www.simpleocr.com for your free download.