I have some 200 year old documents, hand written in urdu script. I wish to have them translated into english.

However, first I need to scan them into (say) tif or jpg file and then convert it to a word file. How do I convert the jpg file into a word file?

Is there any other option of achieveing my goal?

Do a Google search for Optical Character recognition. You're about to go down a bumpy road.

This is doable, but I have to admit that the amount of time it takes to scan/optically analyze and convert to text, then proofread the result... it often rivals the time it would have taken to simply type it out.

Give this a try
Zamzar - Free online file conversion (http://www.zamzar.com/)

Seahwk, that just converts pics to other pic formats. IrfanView (http://www.Irfanview.com) does that, is free, and doesn't require email addresses, and is WAY more powerful as a pic management tool.

This is an OCR issue.