Entered CNET Catalog: 09/21/2002
SKU: 0780420104129
Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc. (ScanSoft)
Manufacturer description
OmniPage Pro 12 Office is a powerful productivity application that delivers the most accurate document conversion available, turning PDF and paper - letters, contracts, tables, manuals - into editable word processing and spreadsheet documents. Ideal for desktop, workgroup and enterprise users, OmniPage Pro 12 Office delivers everything you need to convert, edit, process, and share your paper and PDF documents. OmniPage Pro 12 Office saves you time by eliminating the need to manually reproduce documents and spreadsheets, delivering highly precise, editable results that can be used by your existing PC applications. It saves you money by replacing manual filing with electronic storage and retrieval - delivering the OCR accuracy that gives you the confidence that your documents can be instantly searched and found on your PC, network drives and content management systems. Best of all, it combines desktop ease of use with advanced XML, batch processing, PDF and Open eBook capabilities - all within a single, affordable application. Turn information into electronic documents you can use. Would it be more efficient to have it electronically instead of paper? Would it be easier to work with XML or Word instead of PDF? Let OmniPage accurately convert your documents for maximum timesavings and efficiency. You have PDF and paper documents that need to be edited, updated, or integrated into your electronic workflow. Why spend time and money re-typing or re-keying data? With OmniPage Pro 12 Office, you can save time and eliminate this effort by editing your documents electronically - whether they are paper or PDF. Need to find important information fast? Want to use your information within other programs and applications? OmniPage Pro 12 Office provides a unique set of automation, archive and integration capabilities designed to process documents for maximum productivity. Increase your company's productivity by sharing information - within the workgroup or across the country. OmniPage Pro 12 Office delivers powerful document conversion choices that enable users to share and comment on documents within a networked document management system, over the web, or via email.Product summary
The good: Accurately converts paper or PDF documents into editable files; easy to use; offers sophisticated controls to those who want them; creates searchable PDF files; synthesized voices read aloud to you as you proofread; converts tables with ease.
The bad: Makes some errors in font typeface and size; no toll-free technical support; very limited free phone support.
The bottom line: If you've outgrown the starter software that came with your scanner, OmniPage Pro 12.0 Office is your best next step.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: Yes
- Reviewed on: 10/03/2002
Setup is smooth sailing
Once you begin the OmniPage installation, you'll have the program ready to run in a matter of minutes. If you purchased the downloadable version, launch the install program; otherwise, just pop in the CD and you're almost done. You must enter a serial number, but OmniPage doesn't entangle you in an awkward registration or verification processes. Once you start the program, you can let a setup wizard guide you through the steps of preparing a conversion job or use the toolbar to do it yourself. Then you can either control each individual step manually or choose the large 1-2-3 button (located above the main panes) to automate the process.
The paper chase
Version 12's clutter-free main screen displays three vertical windows, with a fourth minimized at the bottom. The panel to the left (located within a larger window called the Image Panel) displays thumbnails of pages you've scanned so that you can easily access them at will. Also in the Image Panel, the middle window divides the page currently being analyzed into separate zones for different types of OCR analysis: text, graphics, or tables. For your convenience, the right-hand window (the Text Editor) displays the post-OCR page so that you can proofread it. You can also view it with or without formatting by clicking one of three buttons: True Page View, Retain Fonts And Paragraph View, and No Formatting View.
By default, the Document Manager window sits minimized at the bottom of the screen. Enlarged, it displays details about the pages you're scanning, such as the page name, the number of characters, and the number of suspect words. After the OCR process, OmniPage proofreads your document, then another window opens on top of the rest, showing words that are questionable or not found in the program's dictionary, suggested replacements, and a magnified view of the scanned image so that you can see what the original looked like. Also--this is really cool--OmniPage's computerized voices can read a scanned document back to you so that you can identify incorrect words by ear.
As in the past, OmniPage Pro 12 works with any scanner or camera that has a TWAIN driver (most such devices do). If your scanner has an automatic document feeder, you can set OmniPage to scan multipage documents. Even better, in addition to scanned images and PDF files, OmniPage runs OCR on files saved in most graphics formats (including TIF, BMP, PCX, DCX, JPG, GIF, and XIF) and saves scanned pages as RTF and Adobe Acrobat files, as well as in various word-processor and even eBook formats.
Scandalous behavior
During our rigorous scanning tests, OmniPage Pro 12 Office aced table-data translations, not only nailing the content but also reproducing the correct fonts and formatting. With long stretches of text, it made remarkably few recognition errors--far fewer than Abbyy FineReader. But OmniPage Pro occasionally botched text formatting. For example, in a few instances, OmniPage accidentally italicized the letter or word following an italicized word. And OmniPage translated an all-bold sentence erratically: some words in bold, others plain. At times, even point sizes or fonts in the scanned version differed from those of the original.
Business should take note of OmniPage Pro's network capabilities. For example, you can set OmniPage to work with networked scanners, and the program's multiuser licensing lets administrators install it across a local network to any or all connected computers. Whether you run OmniPage Pro on one ore many single computers, you'll appreciate the scheduler utility that lets you set recognition jobs to execute at a later time, such as overnight. Since OCR programs are processing-intensive, running them overnight will let you work in other programs during the day, without compromising speed and performance.
You'll never scan alone
If OmniPage Pro 12 gives you trouble, don't worry. ScanSoft provides a clearly written and well-illustrated manual with thorough explanations of OmniPage's features and an extensive troubleshooting section. The company's Web site contains extensive support materials, and you can contact technical support by e-mail and phone from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. You get one free (but not toll-free) technical call, but any subsequent calls related to problems solved in the manual or online will cost you $19.95. The direct phone support is expensive, but ScanSoft's free resources should provide most users with answers.
Taking care of business
Although homebodies can certainly take advantage of OmniPage Pro 12 Office's power, you won't get your money's worth if you don't regularly need to scan and convert documents. On the other hand, businesses of all sizes will find this program indispensible. At $599.99 (direct), the app itself is expensive, but few will pay that price. The competitive upgrade cost is $199.99, and almost anyone with a scanner will qualify for this since most come with a starter version of some OCR package. Compared to the $150 Abbyy FineReady, OmniPage costs a bit more, but its quality performance and versatile features easily offset the price difference.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12out of 12 user reviews
Not Worth the money nor TIME
Pros: Great OCR
Cons: Installation very poor. No support. If removed because of computer Probs, forget reinstalling. Just wont do it!
out of 12 user reviews
What a pile of useless crap.
Pros: Comes in a nice box, installed without much problem, did a good job of recognizing my scanner and setting up.
Cons: Crashes often, technical support is poor, and the OCR quality is not good enough to be useful on anything but the cleanest document using large, simple fonts. At least 75% of the time you will spend more time trying to convert your document with this unr
out of 12 user reviews
Very Accurate
Pros: Very accurate text recognition, better than the Capture program built into Acrobat 5. Easy to use. Good scanner setup tool -- should be able to set up any TWAIN scanner to work with the program, even if it's not on the program's standard scanner list.
Cons: Would be nice if you could proof OCR results of PDF Searchable Image files after they have been created and saved in batch mode by OmniPage. To proofread using OP 12, you need to proof before the PDF is first created and saved by OP 12. Would also be ni
out of 12 user reviews
Too much programing not enough simplicity
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Does NOT handle complex tables
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Feature Creep Example
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Can't recommend for large works yet
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Get the job done right the first time!
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A must-have tool for solo attorneys.
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Forget Omnipage, use ABBYY FineReader
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Needs a service pack
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Excellent - get it at the right price
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