title: how to convert/match a handwritten list of names? (HWR)
body: <p>I would like to see if I can scan a sign-in sheet for a class. The good news is I know 90% of the names that might be written. </p>
  
  <p>My idea was to use tessaract to parse an image of names, and then use the Levenshtein algorithm to compare each line with a list of names in my database and if I get reasonably close matches, then that name is right.</p>
  
  <p>Does this approach sound like a good one? If not, other ideas?</p>
  
  <p>I tried using tesseract on a sample sheet (see below)</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/g0f81.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/g0f81.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>I used:</p>
  
  <pre><code>tesseract simple.png -psm 4 outtxt
  Tesseract Open Source OCR Engine v3.05.01 with Leptonica
  Warning. Invalid resolution 0 dpi. Using 70 instead.
  Error in boxClipToRectangle: box outside rectangle
  Error in pixScanForForeground: invalid box
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am assuming it didn't like line 2 because I went below the line.</p>
  
  <p>The results I got were:</p>
  
  <pre><code>1.. AM: (harm;
  
  l. ’E (J 22 a 00k
  
  2‘ wau \\) [HQ
  
  4. KIM TAYLOE
  5. LN] Davis
  
  6‘ Mzﬂé! Ha K
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Obviously not the greatest, my guess is the distance matches for 4 &amp; 5 would work, but the rest are not even close.</p>
  
  <p>I have control of my sign-in sheet, but not the handwriting of folks coming in, so if any changes to that I can do to help, please let me know.</p>