Product Reviews

ABBYY FineReader is well known for its 'lite' versions often bundled with scanners. But now ABBYY is taking on the likes of ScanSoft OmniPage Pro in the premium full-price market with this latest release of FineReader - version 6 Professional. OmniPage Pro 12 is due for release in a month or two and not a moment too soon for ScanSoft, as FineReader 6 Pro is not only cheaper than the current OmniPage Pro 11 (see Reviews, issue 84, p160), but superior in key areas as well.

FineReader Pro 6 adds a number of features. At the top of the list is Intelligent Background Filtering (IBF), which ABBYY also refers to as 'adaptive binarisation'. In plain English, the source image has its contrast optimised and noise filtered. ABBYY claims an improvement in recognition rates of 35 per cent when dealing with poor-quality originals. IBF is also designed to deal better with colour and textured backgrounds.

When I compared the processing of several documents using FineReader 6 Pro and OmniPage Pro 11, FineReader performed more convincingly, both in terms of accuracy and speed. On average, the program took just three-quarters of the document process time needed in OmniPage Pro 11. With good-quality originals, both packages are nearly 100 per cent accurate, though FineReader 6 retains layouts and fonts more accurately. With low-resolution originals such as faxes, FineReader 6 Pro demonstrates greater accuracy than OmniPage Pro 11.

Next on the list of claimed developments is improved text flow around irregularly shaped objects when exporting to Microsoft Word. Although FineReader does a significantly better job than OmniPage Pro 11, neither coped well with text positioned at 90 degrees.

Third on the list of improvements to ABBYY's FineReader 6 Pro is better retention of font spacing and line length when exporting to Microsoft Word. Once more, the claim is justified when compared to OmniPage Pro 11.

Another new feature is the ability to convert Adobe PDF format documents into text that can be edited and incorporated into new documents. You can now also export your document

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in PDF format. When exporting to either HTML or PDF, there is added control over the data compression rate of images embedded in the document. RTF, DOC, HTML and PDF destination formats can now include images with resolution settings from 72ppi up to 600ppi - there's no need to rescan the document and cut and paste images into the new document in order to retain image quality.

A vital feature now included in FineReader 6 is a wysiwyg editor, which allows you to preserve documents' page layouts, including tables, images and columns. For the first time, you can print directly from FineReader 6, avoiding the need to export the document beforehand, especially as FineReader will display the layout more closely matching the original.

Language support is another strong area for FineReader 6. There's a specialist Cyrillic version, and the standard version can cope with specialised fonts used in a variety of Central and Eastern European languages, including Baltic, Greek and Turkish.

Multilingual PDF documents can be created without the need for installing extra fonts. Serbian has now been added to the languages recognised, making 122 in all for the standard version and 177 for the Cyrillic version. Even artificial languages such as Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua and Occidental are supported. You can also add new languages with version 6.

There has been some attempt to make FineReader more user-friendly. While the program analyses a source document image, it will, if necessary, display hints and tips to help you improve the quality of the scan such as increasing the resolution setting.

You have the choice of a one-button automatic process from scan/load image through to exporting the recognised document or you can use the Scan and Read Wizard. The latter means you can familiarise yourself with the process as it happens. One problem we found was that the Wizard asks you to estimate the accuracy of the result, but you can't actually scroll the result window to see the whole page.

Recently, form handling has been increasingly expected as a standard feature in OCR packages and FineReader isn't an exception. However, to access the ABBYY FormFiller application you must first register the FineReader software. Registration also earns access to community-based online support.

For £162, a Corporate Edition is also available if you require distributed document handling and network installation. This version is also optimised for recognising business cards and barcodes.

Overall, ABBYY FineReader 6 Professional is an impressive package that is significantly superior to the current, more expensive market leader, ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 11.