Dear list, I have recently discovered this tool, by a Spanish team, named GIDOC or "Gimp-based Interactive transcription of old text DOCuments": it is defined as a "computer-assisted transcription prototype for handwritten text in old documents", and is, interestingly, built as a GIMP plugin. It can be downloaded here, together with some demonstration material, a demo video etc: http://prhlt.iti.es/projects/multimodal/idoc/content.php?page=gidoc.php
Much remains to be done in terms of OCR and automatic / assisted transcription of ancient documents, and this tool certainly isn't the definitive solution to all our problems, but I find the approach interesting (open source, plugged in another tool like GIMP, etc.)
Any thoughts / experiences?
Best, Marjorie