by Hyman L. LaVere LACS

A small disclaimer at the beginning of this review; there is now a later version of this program, namely OmniPage Pro 11. The maker Scansoft claims, in Ver. 11, the most accurate OCR technology with new functionality such as user-friendly PDF input/output capability. Also claimed is "IntelliTrain Proofing, which uses previous corrections to improve OCR results. This program was not available at the time I received this version. In addition, Herb Van Brink of LACS reviewed this program about a year ago in User Friendly. At that time he found several bugs and inconsistencies in the program. Many of them have been addressed to some extent in this version, which is 10.01.

My main interest in this program is the fact that I am involved in desktop publishing. I edit and publish an 8-page flyer for a retiree organization. The inputs sent to me are for the most part typewritten text. I scan and insert these into my word processor for editing, and other formatting and corrective actions. I then use these text files for insertion into my desktop publishing program. OCR, or optical character recognition, is an integral tool that I use. The one that came with my original scanner was not very good. I have gone through several OCR programs; the most notable of these has been Textbridge Pro 98, Version 1.0. I purchased another scanner, and Textbridge Pro 98 Version 8.0 was bundled with the hardware. Finally, to OmniPage Pro 10 which has been touted in several magazine reviews as being quite good with the best OCR accuracy factor. The company claims an accuracy factor of 99%, which is extremely good, if that figure can be met. A little history at this point is that Scansoft, a division of Xerox, makes Textbridge. Caere, the maker of OmniPage, was purchased recently by Scansoft, so now they are one company with the different products. The program has an intuitive interface environment with wizard help to simplify most tasks in an easy to understand manner. The help file consists of a rather small 64-page manual, which provides for easy reading and comprehension.

The program comes on two CD’s since there are actually 2 programs in this package. One is the OCR program, and the other is OmniPage Web, personal edition. The latter, a web program, turns your paper documents into translatable fully hyperlinked HTML pages that can be published immediately to the web. In the interest in giving the OCR program my major attention, I did not install the second CD for the web program, although I will comment on it at the end of my review.

Once installed and running, the main window offers the choice of setting various options of the program. There are three modes of operation, which are Auto OCR, Manual OCR and OCR Wizard. Each method, except for the OCR Wizard, can be customized as per your personal requirements and the complexity of the scanned material. The OCR Wizard, on the other hand, asks a series of questions and sets the various parameters automatically. The auto OCR button did not show the Start/Finish/Additional button or the Stop button as per the illustration in the manual. The manual indicates that you can also choose the Start in the Process menu to begin the scan, which I did when I used the Auto OCR. I sent an e-mail inquiry to technical service regarding this omission, and to date they have not responded. There is also a provision that the program must be registered or else after 25 launches you cannot continue using it. The primary reason for this is the company wants to get information to send you material on new products, special offers, and upgrades.

The purpose of programs of this sort is to turn images (read text) into computer editable text. When all is said and done, this program does it better than either of the two previously mentioned programs. One oddity of the installation is that it does not ask to install an icon on the desktop, which necessitates running the program from the Start\Run\Programs method. This can be fixed easily by creating a shortcut and dragging it to the Desktop. The main capability of the program is its ability to retain the elements of graphics, text, and page formatting, such as columns, paragraph spacing, and table formats. It can also retain signatures as a graphic. After the basic operations are completed, you can save the document, to any desired location, in any specified file format that your word processor is capable of. You can also send it to the clipboard or a mail attachment. A very unusual feature is the ability of the program to actually read the text out loud after scanning. This must be chosen before the file is saved or exported. I found this to be very clever and somewhat useful in that you could print the scanned page and then have it read to you for checking and recognition purposes. A useful feature in the installation was the ability to find my word processor, Word 97, and automatically register it in the program. This permits direct access from the Word 97 program, much like the "Direct Access" of my previous programs, Textbridge Pro98, without ever leaving my word processor. I did encounter a small problem using this feature in that the "Acquire Text" command was not shown in the pull down file menu of my Word 97 program. This command starts the scanning process from within Word 97 automatically. When I tried to call the toll free 800 number shown in an insert of the package, I was told that this number has been discontinued. (800-395-3801). I then went to the Caere.com web site, and in the FAQ section quickly found the fix for this problem. The FAQ section has 229 typical problems that can occur within this product. I had no problem accessing the FAQ’s on the web site. The program also finds your scanner and associates the hardware and its software.

The main desktop displays your scanned document in a thumbnail view, an image view, and a text view. Using the wizard is a simple and easy way to get to this point. It asks a series of questions and selects the appropriate settings and commands for you. You can resize these windows or hide them, as you prefer. The main OmniPage toolbar consists of three functions, including the wizard function. Each of these contains separate process options and commands to do the job operations on the document to be scanned. There is a tool bar to modify the Image view before scanning to improve the OCR. This can be helpful when working on documents with multiple columns or graphics, or to modify the page orientation. On documents such as this, the page is broken up into zones in the image view, and these zones can be modified as to content, fonts, or other properties. After proofing and editing, the questionable words are highlighted, and the scanned document is placed into your word processor. In the interest of experimentation, I scanned a page of User Friendly, and the results were very acceptable with near 99% accuracy. In one minor instance the capital letter A was mistaken for the letter H and it recognized the TM or trademark as the letter T". In order for the program to recognize these odd symbols, you can create an OCR training file for this purpose.

The program contains on a second CD OmniPage Web 1.0 Personal Edition. This program enables you to change your scanned and OCR’d documents into a web page for each scanned page. It can also create hypertext links and other navigational aids to move through the documents, and can even create a table of contents. Most major word processors can also do many of these tasks. Web page creation containing video/graphics and/or animation is a field that takes some professional training. If your main intent is to distribute a large amount of documents to as wide an audience possible, this program might be your answer.

I found OmniPage Pro 10.1 to be pretty easy to use. Most of the commands and procedures are similar to other OCR programs. My background with Textbridge was very helpful. However, anyone with basic computer skills should have no problem learning and using the program. The accuracy factor was definitely better than the Textbridge Ver. 8.0 program, and the claim of 99% accuracy is borne out, generally on a good original copy. The integration with word processors, especially Word 97, is very good.

Price: On various web sites the price ranged from $103 to $129 for OmniPage 11. CompUSA had it for $129.99 and Staples had this review version (10) for $89.95. Fry’s $99.95 for Upgrade to Ver. 11

Requirements: IBM or Compatible Pentium, 32 MB Ram, 50 MB Free hard disk space (90 MB Recommended), SVGA Display (256 Colors), Windows 95/98/2000 or NT 4.0

Product Support: I have found the web site very helpful . Example: their extensive FAQ section. Instead of calling the toll number, send e-mail. My e-mails to omnipage_support- @scansoft.com have been promptly responded to within 48 hours as promised with good information.

Caere Product Support: 1-408-395-8319 www.caere.com