What is Lios?

Lios is a free and open-source software for converting print into text using either scanner or a camera, it can also produce text out of scanned images from other sources such as Pdf, Image, Folder containing Images or screenshot. Program is given total accessibility for visually impaired. Lios is written in python3, and we release it under GPL-3 license. There are great many possibilities for this program, Feedback is the key to it.

How to use Lios??

To open Lios, you can navigate to the Application menu, then go to Graphics, and click on Lios. Alternatively, you can search for Lios in the dashboard and launch it from there. It is also be opened through terminal. Once Lios is open, it is important to configure the settings before proceeding.

The primary use of Lios is to convert print into text by using a scanner or camera. Lios support different languages like Malayalam, English, Hindi, Arabic, and so on. Currently, there is a question on your mind. Is Lios capable of supporting multiple languages in the same print? Yes, of course, Lios allows you to convert the print into text, which may contain different languages. But the maximum number of language selections in Lios is three. Like the settings, we must make some necessary arrangements before we start to use the application. To do that, by accesssing the preference menu either by pressing Ctrl+P or navigating through the menu option. Within the preferences window, you will find the three tabs: General, Recognition and Scanning. First goes to the recognition to ensure that the engine is tesseract. Then, going down, we can see the language selection boxes up to three numbers. Here, we can update the desired languages.

We must set the mode of rotation in Lios. A visual impaired can set the full automated only if the language is English because its support spell checker in Lios. If it is Malayalam ‘manual’ mode is preferred.

Next, we must set the angle of the scanner. If it is zero degree it only scans a single page, if it is ninety degree it scans the two consecutive pages of a material. If we scan a single page ‘The page numbering type’ is single, if it is two consecutive pages that is double. Remember one thing try to enter the same page number in Lios as the material you are scanning.

Scanning page option allow to set the resolution, brightness, etc. Resolution is set three hundred as default, but it must reduce to two hundred, because in tesseract engine two hundred is enough to get the correct output. Brightness is the important setting of the process. The feature is entirely depending on the scanned paper quality. The scanned paper has enough shining and smoothness the brightness can be reduced to thirty to forty range. If the paper is very rough, we must increase the brightness for better output. To identify the paper quality there is a ‘brightness optimiser’ option in Lios. Now the option is available for only in English language. These are the main steps we need to take before operating Lios.

Before we start a new scan press ctrl+N to take a new page. doing so it clears the text field and erases the previous text. By doing like this the file is saved by itself. Also, we must try to place the book into the scanner according to our angle preferences. The angle is set to zero degree then the top portion of the book is placed close to the bottom side of the scanner, and the angle is set to ninety degrees adjust the top of the book to the leftmost corner of the scanner. While scanning the book should be close to the scanner. The scanner should also be well closed. After scanning and recognition the text start to read by using a screen reader support.

Let’s look how to convert the text file into an audio file. It is easy to handle the text file into an audio file. we can listen to anytime and we can set the volume, speed of the speech, voice pitch, during an audio conversion. For that press ctrl+A to select all text. Then go to the tools menu and then choose audio converter. There is opened a page there we can fix the speed, volume, pitch, voice, split time etc. Split time option is used to split the audio file according to time in minutes. Initially its set to five minutes, we can increase or decrease it as per our requirements. It is also depending on the length of the audio file. All requirements are updated then press the convert and save it

What inside Lios?

Opening and Closing

For opening Lios launch Application menu > Graphics > Lios. Or one can search in dashboard and start Lios from there.

Open with image items or PDF

One can select the required images to be imported from the file browser, open the context menu using the right-click or application key, and select Open with Lios.

Closing

Select Quit from File menu or press ctrl+Q

Importing images from various sources

Importing image

At first choose the import-image from the file menu of Lios. This will cause a file chooser dialogue to appear. One can select a particular image or multiple images files. The images will appear on image list of Lios.

Importing images from PDF

At first select import-PDF item from file menu. A file chooser dialogue will appear, here you can select the PDF file to be extracted.

Importing all images in a folder

At first, choose the import-folder from the file menu of Lios. This will cause a file-chooser dialogue to appear. One can select the folder containing the image files. The images will appear on image list of Lios.

Importing image from scanner

Before scanning, make sure that the scan menu is available, and select the scanner from the Lios main interface if multiple scanners are connected. You should press Update-Scanner-List when a scanner is connected or removed.

The pages and their brightness may be different. So, it is important to select the appropriate resolution, brightness, and scan area while scanning a book. One can change these settings from the scanning page of Lios preferences. Increasing or decreasing resolution can be done by clicking on the ‘+- button or pressing the up and down arrows from the resolution spin button. (Default 300)

Increasing or decreasing brightness can also be done in the same way. However, it’s better to use the brightness optimizer to set the exact brightness value for a particular book. (Default 50)

The scan area can be selected using the scan-area combo box. It can be a quarter, a half, or three quarters. It depends on the size of the book (default: full).

One can make a scan using the scan-image (F8) button from the scan menu.

Import image from scanner repeatedly

One can set the number of pages to be scanned repeatedly from scanning page of preferences also the time between the two scanning can be changed. One can start scanning using scan-repeatedly (Ctrl+F8) item from scan menu for continuous scanning If

you want to stop repeated scanning using stop-all-process (Ctrl+F4) item in the scan menu.

Take Screenshot

One can take screenshots and recognise them using this feature. There are two modes: the first is to capture the entire screen, and the second is to capture by selecting an area. Both options are placed in the scan menu. The second option is more preferred. This feature can be used for recognizing text from videos.

Capture image using Webcam

One can start capturing by selecting Scan-Using-Webcam from the scan menu. Then adjust the webcam and click on the take button to capture the image. After capturing enough images, close the window, select an image from the icon view on the left side of the Lios, and process it.

Manipulation of imported Images

Image manipulation options are available in Image Menu of Lios.

Invert List

This is used to change the order of images

Reposition of image items

one can click and drag image to any position among other images in the list.

Rotate selected Images

One can rotate bunch of images that are not in exact rotation.

Delete selected Images

One can delete all images or selected images from the list.

Save Images

Used to save all images or selected images to a folder.

Save images as PDF

One can save all images as pdf or save selected images as pdf.

OCR images without rotating

Before running OCR on images, we can set the OCR engine, language, and insert position. These options are on the recognition page of Lios preferences. The selection of engine will affect the supported languages combo box. One can decide the place in which ‘output text’ is added. It can be at the starting position, the end position, or wherever the cursor blinks. After setting this, one can ocr images without rotation using the ocr-selected-images-without-rotating item from the ocr menu. Or selecting the images from the image list and using the same option from the property’s menu (right click).

OCR images with rotation

The mode rotation can be selected from the recognition page of Lios preferences. The options available are Full automatic, Partial automatic and Manual.

Full automatic: The Lios will automatically select the appropriate rotation. The detection may take several seconds.

Partial automatic: In partial automatic mode, the first scanned orientation is the model for the rest.

Manual: In this, you can give any orientation you like for each and every image. The rotation should be set in the recognition page of Lios preferences.

OCR Rectangle selections

One can select the region of interest from an image by drawing rectangles in the image using the mouse. After selecting the regions, one can OCR the items using the Recognise-Selected-Are as button shown on the on the left side of the image view. For each entry in the list, there will be X, Y, width, and height. The overlap won’t be allowed.

Scan and OCR directly

One can do scan and ocr directly using the scan-and-ocr (F9) button from the scan menu. This will first make a scan and add the image to the list, then ocr the image with respect to the rotation policy.

Scan-and-ocr-repeatedly (Ctrl+F9) will scan and recognise images repeatedly. The process can be stopped using the stop-all-process (Ctrl+F4) button.

Manipulation of OCR Output

New

One can start a new book or clear the entire text by selecting new (Ctrl+N) from the File menu. This will ask confirmation if text is not saved.

Open

To open a file in Lios, select the Open (Ctrl+O) button in the File menu.

This will cause the Open dialogue to appear. Use your mouse or keyboard to select the file that you wish to open, and then click Open. The file that you’ve selected will open.

Save/Save As

To save a file in Lios, select the Save (Ctrl+S) button from the file menu.

If you are saving a new file, the Save As dialogue will appear, and you can select a name for the file as well as the directory where you would like the file to be saved.

Other Basic Options

This includes all text manipulation tools like cut, copy, paste, and delete text.

Punch

This is used to open text on a file and paste that text into the current cursor position. This will cause the open dialog to appear, and there you can select the file to be punched.

Append

Same as punch but the text will be added at the end of the current text.

Find

This can be used for finding the word in text. Finding the word in Lios can be done by opening the find tool by choosing the Find (Ctrl+F) item from the Edit menu. Enter the text that you wish to search into the Find Word field. To find the next match, click Next. To find the previous match, click Previous. One can see the context for the current match above the Previous and Next buttons. Also, the matched word will be highlighted.

Find and Replace

Editing text can be time-consuming. To save time, Lios includes a Replace function that helps you find and replace portions of text. In order to replace, select Find-and-Replace (Ctrl+R) from the Edit menu. Enter the text that you wish to replace into the word field. Enter the new replacement text into the Replace Word field. To find the next match, click Next. To find the previous match, click Previous. One can see the context for the current match below the Previous and Next buttons. To replace only the current match, click Replace. To replace all occurrences of the searched-for text, click Replace All.

Spell checker

One can manually check the spelling of a text selection or the entire document.

To check the spelling of a text, the appropriate dictionaries must be installed. The spell check starts at the current cursor position, or at the beginning of the text selection. Click on the document or select the text that you want to check. Choose Spell-Check (Ctrl+F7) from the Tools menu. When a possible spelling error is encountered, the Spell Check dialogue opens, and Lios offers some suggested corrections. Do one of the following:

To accept a correction, click the suggestion, and then click Change. Edit the sentence in the upper text box, and then click Change. Or to add the unknown word to a user-defined dictionary, click Add to user dictionary.

Readability

Font and Colour

General page includes options for changing Font, Colour and Background colour and same options for highlighting. This can increase the readability of text.

Go-to-line

Select Go-to-line (Ctrl+L) from Edit menu. The go-to-line dialogue box will appear with current line number. Now type the line number and press Enter.

Go-to-page

Select Go-to-Page (Ctrl+L) from Edit menu. The Go-to-Page dialogue box will appear, type the page number and press Enter.

Text Reader

One can read the output text using TTS by setting the cursor and activating the Start-Reader (F5) item from the tools menu. One can change the speed, rate, voice, and reading volume from the general page of Lios preferences. One can increase or decrease the speech rate while reading using the Increase-Reader-Speed (Ctrl+PageUp) and Decrease-Reader-Speed (Ctrl+PageDown) buttons on the same menu.

Utilities

Brightness Optimizer

One can find the appropriate brightness for a book using the brightness optimizer.

The brightness checker is one of the major utilities of Lios. Different books demand different brightness levels, depending on the quality of the paper. The OCR process results best on the brightness level set.

It can be done using the brightness spin button on the recognition page in the Lios preferences.

If one is not familiar with determining the brightness of a book, one can use the brightness optimizer in the scan menu. To start the optimizer, select Optimize-Scanner-Brightness from the scan menu. Then Lios will ask you to set the following parameters:

Note that if the mode of rotation in preferences is Full-Automatic or Partial-Automatic then Lios will try to detect the rotation using a single scan and pop-up Optimize Scanner-Brightness dialogue.

In the dialogue, the first one is angle-to-be-rotated of rotation for optimising, and the second one is the current value, w, which is the existing brightness (the default value is 50). The third parameter is Start, which means the value from which the brightness check starts (the default start is 10). The fourth one is distance, that is, the difference between the brightness level set for each consecutive scan (the default distance is 10). The fifth parameter is End, which means the value from which the brightness check ends (the default end is 90). If one does not change any value, click the optimize button.

The programme will scan from 10 to 90 with a gap of 10. After each scan, the total number of words detected will be announced. After ten scans, one can opt for further accuracy in brightness by changing the values, or just click Optimize button to follow the changed default values. In the end, click the apply button, and the OCR process will be done on the brightness level set. It is highly recommended that at the beginning of a new book, this utility be used. Also note that a typical page that represents the quality of the book may be selected, and no movement of the page kept in the scanner may be made until the process is over.

Audio converter

One can use audio converter to change the text into small pieces of audio and save it as WAV Files. You can decide the speed, pitch, split time (to decide length of each WAV files) and volume before conversion.

Artha

One can find out the meaning of any word using Artha. Select the word and press Alt+Ctrl+W to get the meaning, synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, words related to them, and words like them.

Saving and Loading Preferences

The Lios Preferences dialogue box contains three pages: General, Recognition, and Scanning. One can save and load preferences for each book. Also, one can reset the preferences using the Restore item in the Preferences menu.

Scanner Trouble Shooting

These options can be changed from scanning page of Lios Preferences.

Changing the driver

The next item for selecting driver. If one driver is not working one can select the other one.

Change to Linear or binary

Linear and binary are two modes that allow the user to scan directly as a black-and-white image. This is more appropriate for recognition. One can disable this, but colour scanning will take more time than linear.

Cache Calibration

By enabling Cache Calibration one can avoid heating scanner lamp each time.

Keyboard Shortcuts

ctrl+o : To open file

Alt+f : Go to file menu

Ctrl+N : To open a new page

Ctrl+S : To save

Ctrl+ E : To export text as pdf

Ctrl+Q : To quit the application

Ctrl+P : To open Preferences page

Ctrl+F9 : To scan and Ocr repeatedly

F9 : To scan and Ocr

Ctrl+F4 : TO stop all process

F5 : To start the reader

Ctrl+F5 : To stop the reader

Ctrl+f8 : To scan image repeatedly

Ctrl+L : Go to the line

Ctrl+G : Go to the page