Thanks for the suggestion. I have it downloaded and installed on my test server and have run it with various options on one of the tiff files Even if this doesn't work for me, what a fantastic tool; I may have applications for it later. :) Can't seem to get the text out of the tiff file though. Here's what I was able to get: # exiftool -a -u 00000001.tif ExifTool Version Number : 9.60 File Name : 00000001.tif Directory : . File Size : 936 kB File Modification Date/Time : 2013:07:17 15:59:31-07:00 File Access Date/Time : 2014:05:13 10:07:30-07:00 File Inode Change Date/Time : 2014:04:30 09:24:55-07:00 File Permissions : rw-r--r-- File Type : TIFF MIME Type : image/tiff Exif Byte Order : Little-endian (Intel, II) Subfile Type : Full-resolution Image Image Width : 4802 Image Height : 7189 Bits Per Sample : 1 Compression : T6/Group 4 Fax Photometric Interpretation : WhiteIsZero Fill Order : Normal Document Name : The Observer Strip Offsets : (Binary data 195 bytes, use -b option to extract) Orientation : Horizontal (normal) Samples Per Pixel : 1 Rows Per Strip : 256 Strip Byte Counts : (Binary data 166 bytes, use -b option to extract) X Resolution : 300 Y Resolution : 300 Page Name : 1 T6 Options : (none) Resolution Unit : inches Software : ResCarta SDK v3.1.6 Modify Date : 2013:06:28 19:13:26 Exif 0x1637 : 60 63 120 109 108 32 118 101 114 115 105 111 110 61 34 [...] Exif 0x1638 : 226 128 162 97 108 117 10 67 101 110 116 114 97 108 10 [...] Exif 0x1639 : 133 156 203 142 38 57 110 133 247 245 44 57 64 232 70 7[...] Image Size : 4802x7189 Not sure any of this helps me. - Gavin >>> "Reser, Gregory" <[log in to unmask]> 5/12/2014 3:30 PM >>> You might try http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ , a Perl library to read and write embedded metadata. Greg Reser UC San Diego Library 9500 Gilman Drive, 0175K La Jolla, CA 92093-0175 Phone: 858.246.0998 Skype: gregreser -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stuart Yeates Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:26 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Extracting Text From .tiff Files Your first step is to pin down the format. TIFF is a container form (like zip) and can contain pretty much anything. Likely candidates for you format include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTC_Information_Interchange_Model and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform Your second step is to find a library / tool for your platform that supports your format. Cheers stuart -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gavin Spomer Sent: Tuesday, 13 May 2014 10:01 a.m. To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [CODE4LIB] Extracting Text From .tiff Files Hello folks, I'm in the process of migrating a student newspaper collection, currently implemented with ResCarta, into our new bepress institutional repository. ResCarta has each page of a newspaper stored as a tiff file. Not only does the tiff file contain the graphics data, but it has some metadata in xml format and the fulltext of the page. I know this because I opened up some of the tiffs with a plain-text editor (Vim). Although I can see the text in the file, I've only been about 90% accurate in extracting it with a script. Some of those "weird" characters seem to do some wonky things when doing file IO for some reason. Is there a more reliable way to extract text stored in a tiff file? I've Googled and Googled and have pulled up almost nothing. But there's got to be a way, since ResCarta stores it there and can extract it. Any ideas? Gavin Spomer Systems Programmer Brooks Library Central Washington University