Product Description

TextBridge Pro 11 is the simple and fast way to convert paper into editable electronic documents, saving time and increasing productivity. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Horrible is a Compliment
This product simply does not produce accurate results. It skips entire lines, words on the same line, and misreads even the most legible characters. It came bundled with my scanner, so at least I did not waste my money on it. Don't waste yours!

Poor is too optimistic!
The product does not live up to its description.
It is very inaccurate.It creates more work than it saves.
It is slow to work with in every aspect.
I am very dissatisfied.

Simply the best OCR available!
You will save a lot of time by using this OCR. Top notch accuracy and very easy to use. A must for all those who need an OCR. Don't hesitate! ... Read more

Product Description

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard Upgrade for MAC .Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard software is the quick and easy way to create and share Adobe PDF documents. You can convert files from applications such as Microsoft Office into Adobe PDF documents that can be read by anyone using free Adobe Reader software. Combine spreadsheets, presentations, images, and other files into a consolidated Adobe PDF document that others can read but not alter. Offer reviewers familiar commenting tools to quickly gather input. View comments and feedback from multiple reviewers, and then generate an Adobe PDF file with advanced security features that accurately represents the original document.Acrobat 7.0 Standard Highlights ⢠Create and share documents quickly and easily ⢠Combine different files to create an organized document ⢠Use familiar tools for review and commenting ⢠Protect document content to help preserve its integrityTop Reasons to Buy Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard ⢠Easily create Adobe PDF files Create PDF documents with one-button ease from Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Windows users can also convert to PDF from Access, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Publisher. ⢠Protect sensitive and confidential documents Control documents inside and outside the firewall, online and offline. ⢠Control permissions Set document permissions and restrict whether Adobe PDF documents can be printed or changed. ⢠Assemble documents Create a single Adobe PDF file from multiple sources including Web pages and e-mail to deliver one professional document that anyone can open using free Adobe Reader 7.0 software. ⢠Manage reviews Collect comments, not rewrites, from multiple reviewers that appear together in a single Adobe PDF document. Manage comments using sort and filter tools. ⢠Search with more power Search according to text and document properties to quickly find files on... ... Read more

Features

• Protect sensitive and confidential documents—control documents inside and outside the firewall, online and offline.
• Enjoy improved attachment capabilities—easily attach source files such as spreadsheets and images to an Adobe PDF document.
• Easily create Adobe PDF files—create PDF documents with one-button ease from Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Enjoy improved performance—with improved performance you can quickly convert, collect, and organize Adobe PDF documents.
• Assemble documents—create a single Adobe PDF file from multiple sources—including Web pages and e-mail—to deliver one professional document that anyone can open using free Adobe Reader 7.0 software.

Amazon.com Product Description

IRIS Business Card Reader is an easy way to input your contacts into your computer. Simply slide a business card into your scanner and in seconds the information is automatically transferred to your contact management database. IRIS Business Card Reader will help you keep your contact database up-to-date and it relieves you of the tedious task of having to type card information into your computer.

Powered by the intelligent text recognition software from IRIS, Business Card Reader will accurately recognize and correctly place the information on any business card in the appropriate database fields. The software knows the difference between the first and last name, a city and its state, and a telephone and fax number. IRIS Business Card Reader supports all American and most European business card layouts and recognizes up to 24 languages. ... Read more

Features

• For Mac OS 9.x or OS X
• Converts business cards into database records
• Recognizes data types and assigns them to specific database fields
• Exports to any address database
• Sends contacts directly to your contact management software

Reviews (1)

Writing about a Reader
If you'd still like proof that the average human mind doesn't think in any manner resembling a computer's processor chip (even those computers we love that help us "think different!"), attempt to comprehend the challenge in how a computer "reads" a sheet of paper.

You and I read an article in the newspaper, skip over to a eye-catching advertisement, pull out our wallets and exchange business cards, and all the time, we have learned to scan the item of interest, pick out those words that are important, discard the rest as unnecessary, and go about our busy lives.

But not a computer.A computer lives for those details.And those same details can mire a processor down.

Which in a way is why the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software engine used by ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 is a delight to work with.The people behind the software have helped to link the scanned data into basic patterns and formats ever so much more useful to the daily lives of the user (me, in this case!)

I initially looked into this review by getting my hands on the Business Card Reader (BCR) device, in this version, roman number II, so that I might make my life easier by managing the growing pile of business cards that I collect, and have collected over the past decade, and expect to continue to collect well into the future.

There is something wonderful indeed about business cards, especially in how succinct the summary of a person's relevance.But I digress away from attempting to deal with this growing pile of cards.

Card files don't seem to work for me.But I have enjoyed manually inputting some of my more frequent contacts into Address Books (both Apple's version and Microsoft's Entourage version.)So it seemed an obvious step to begin to input the business cards using a Business Card Reader!

I will warn you -- skip the software that comes "standard" with the current Business Card Reader II.An upgrade is promised, but in the meantime, consider using another ReadIRIS product -- Pro 9.0 (in my case, I tried the corporate edition).

ReadIRIS Pro is a joy to work with.The install was smooth and easy.The software engine (with all files and reference information) installed in less than 80 megabytes.I thought that quite good, especially with how the software promised to handle so many different fonts and language styles.

I tested the software with both a Hewlett Packard scanner and the BCR device.Switching between the two was very quick.I can see how the OCR software could pay for itself due to some of the vast amount of reference materials still unconverted to digital format (the software outputs in text, rich-text, html and pdf formats).Keep in mind however to put aside some time to proof your new documents against the old.If you have a set of material which needs OCR review, one of ReadIRIS Pro 9.0's benefit's shines -- the work you do to input corrections into a dictionary format can help similar documents in basic recognition of font and language skill.

In order to get back to my original project of dealing with my card piles, I was able to get cards read into Entourage's address book in an average of 3 minutes per card.I'm not too quick at typing, but I might have entered them only slightly faster just by doing it all manually.But -- I haven't done this over time.And, I was sort of mesmerized by watching the scanner process my business card stack.That is the fast part.The other portion of the three minute average was spent looking over the scanned data (automatically exported from ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 into Entourage) and "proofing".I was very impressed by the quantity of correct data, even with "pretty" photograph enhanced business cards.

My business card organization project will be ongoing.But now I have a much better tool set.

I definitely recommend the Iris Business Card Reader, but I also recommend contacting the company to see when the enclosed version of software is upgraded, since I didn't benefit from the full corporate version of the software at the listed price. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Very much the best
I do a great deal of OCR in my research and have scanned tens of thousands of FineReader 6 (FR6). I have also tried every other OCR software that is available for PCs. There are other good packages that can serve some needs adequately, but for my work, FR6 is superior in every respect. In particular it is substantially better than the most popular OCR program, OmniPage Pro 12, as well as quite a bit less expensive. Others might have different preferences depending on what they do and what their equipment and software are.

The bulk of my scanning/OCR involves academic articles and historical materials. For the most part I produce PDF files, although I also scan some tables to produce spreadsheets and do some scanning to Word files. Depending on the quality of the original and my precise purpose I may make a PDF with an image and hidden text, an OCR text file, or an OCR text file with images of uncertain words. I use an HP 7450 scanner connected to a Windows 2000 system with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor and 512 MB of RAM.

On this system, FR6 is quite speedy and normally can perform recognition as rapidly as the fastest of desktop scanners will scan. It offers a choice of a fully automatic mode, partly automatic modes, or a very wide selection of user-specified modes. New users will get very good results on most material using the automatic mode and can learn to use its more powerful features as their needs dictate. Even in its automatic mode FR6 is superior to other packages in recognizing difficult text, speed, tools for correcting errors that do appear, and flexibility of output.

One notable and important strength of FR 6 for my purposes is its ability to deal with the many superscripts, subscripts, and special symbols in the typical academic article. FR6, by contrast, gives reasonably good accuracy with such material and makes it easy to correct the mistakes that do crop up. Very often I can scan an entire 20-page article and find not a single mistake.

As I say, there are other products which will no doubt serve many people well. If something else comes free my advice would be to try it and see if it fills your needs. However, if you find you need something better, FR6 is the clear choice.

If you do have another product be sure to see if you qualify for a "competitive upgrade" to FR6 at an even lower price...

Recently ABBYY has brought out version 7.0, which for some reason Amazon carries only in the expensive "corporate" edition, intended for networked operations. The improvements over version 6.0 include somewhat better recognition accuracy; manual control over page splitting; ability to read PDF files, edit, and re-save the edited file in PDF or another format; and improved editing tools. It is definitely worth getting version 7.0 rather than 6.0, but it appears that you have to go to some other vendor than Amazon to get the consumer-oriented "professional" edition.

Multilingual OCR that works!
The FineReader OCR package performs as advertized. I required a package that worked with other alphabets and FineReader fit the bill. I was able to perform OCR on faint 9.5 point Czech typeface with no training -- and I got Czech spell checking to boot.The package is so simple that I failed to read the manual for the first week of use, then when I finally read it, discovered all kinds of OCR aids built into the package. The FineReader does everything I need and more. What's more, you can download a fully operational package and use it for two weeks to be sure it does what you want.

Abbyy FineReader 6.0 Professional Upgrade
Integrates well with Word. Works well under both Windows 98 and Windows XP Professional edition. Using with Mustek Bearpaw 1200 USB scanner with no problems. Marked improvement over the TextBridge software that came with the scanner. Works well with both photos, handwriting documents, and typed documents. Would highly recommend this product for both home and business use.

Register the Product to get Form Filler
I haven't used any other OCR software packages except the one that came with my scanner.Abby FinePoint is, obviously, far superior.So far, I've had good results.Tables aren't as automatic as I'd like, but things have been moving more and more quickly.It's fairly easy to format tables and graphics.I also like that it doesn't put whole pages of text in text boxes.This was one of the main reasons I decided to upgrade.It was making it difficlut to flawlessly merge multipage documents.Abbyy FinePoint is far better.

A couple of things that were't clear to me:
The Presto! OCR 4.0 that CNET recomments is made by Abbyy and is based on their v. 3.0, so you might as well go with the Abbyy 6.0....

You can buy the upgrade is you have ANY OCR software.I upgraded from the version of Presto! that came as Epson Smart Pannel.That makes this package a great deal.

It was also a good deal for me because if you register the product, you get Abbyy FormFiller free.The eliminates the need to ever use a typewriter again.Great for any sort of applications, in my case grant applications.It's saving me tons of time and hassle....

You can download a sample version ....I highly recommend trying it before buying. ... Read more

Product Description

PDF Create! 3.0 ... Read more

Features

• Combine different formats into one PDF - Easily merge Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, JPEG, TIFF and PDF files into a single multi-page PDF document
• Instantly turn entire Web pages into searchable PDF files that you can easily save and share
• Archive important E-mail and attachments into searchable PDF files that can be saved on your PC

Amazon.com Product Description

The IRIS PenExpress handheld scanner is the perfect tool for quickly scanning information directly into your computer. Weighing less than 4 ounces, the PenExpress can easily be taken on the road, to school, anywhere you go. And, it features fast plug-and-play USB setup, and it doesn't require batteries or a separate power source.

The PenExpress is able to recognize up to 1,000 characters per second (or 3.15 inches per second), in as many as 55 langauges. Additionally, it offers a menu interface in your choice of five languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Italian or Spanish). The PenExpress hardware is PC and Mac compatible. Note that the included software (Cardiris Limited Edition) works with Windows only. A 30-day trial version of Readiris Pro is also included.

What's in the Box
IRIS Pen Express, software CD-ROM (Cardiris Limited Edition (Windows only) and 30-day trial version of Readiris Pro), user guide, warranty information ... Read more

Features

• PC and Mac compatible
• Easily scans text and numbers into your computer
• Recognizes up to 1,000 character per second
• Fast plug-and-play USB connection, USB powered
• Multilingual interface, foreign language recognition

Reviews (1)

Pen Dead on Arrival; Worse Customer Service
Software loaded OK, but scanner pen failed to be recognized by the software on all of the five USB ports on my emac and ibook.

So I called customer service and spoke to some guy named "Jessie." I told him about the scanner pen, he asked for the pen batch#, and said, well, you can return it to Amazon or I can send you a new pen. I'm a patient guy, I wanted to give the product a fair shot, so I asked for a new one. It never arrived, and I even called three weeks later and some other guy said, oh yeah, that pen will arrive today. It never arrived. Nothing like customer service types who will lie in order to get you off the phone.

The only good news here is that Amazon accepted my return and gave me a full refund. So if only IRIS could emulate Amazon's customer service philosophy, maybe they'd sell a few more pens, instead of antagonizing once interested customers.

Maybe I'll try the C-Pen next. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 is a terrific way to streamline your life, both personal and professional. Even if your goal is not a paperless home or office, its hard to argue that getting rid of the excess and getting organized isn't a great idea.

Installing PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 was a quick and easy process, especially since the program incorporates any scanner software that you might already use. PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 offers teaching demos for the inexperienced user, but we found this program to be highly intuitive for those familiar with windows-based navigation and functions. One thing we did notice--PaperPort Deluxe takes a heavy toll on your system's resources, so you may want to close out of especially taxing programs while running this software.

PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 includes tons of valuable features that make paying bills, organizing your home office, or doing your taxes faster and easier. You can organize your images using folders and subfolders that can be color-coded, and then annotate them with your comments, dates, history, and contexts. Manage your files visually with clear thumbnails, make use of the PaperPort search engine (which allows you to search for your documents by keywords and phrases), or drag any digital image into a Word document or spreadsheet for instant editing. For business users, PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 allows files to be shared electronically via PaperPort Online. PaperPort also does photos, so you can create albums, and add notes, flags, and annotations to keep your photographs organized and secure.

Perfect for the home office user, student, or small business owner, PaperPort 8.0 makes it easy to clean up your workspace and get organized. Depending on the speed of your scanner, PaperPort Deluxe 8.0 could possibly be faster than looking for another inch of space in your already overcrowded file drawer. --Kendra Hayden ... Read more

Reviews (27)

Came with my visioneer scanner & it was love at first sight!
Works great for me.
I showed it to coworker's (whose scanners came with a different software package) and they liked it so much that they ordered paperport for their systems.

Stable. Not buggy.

All around nice program.

Paperless home
I have a paperless home now, thanks to PaperPort Deluxe. I've used it since the early versions.

I scan all of my bills, and store them electronically.

However, I recommend getting version 9. The primary file type documents are stored in is the propriatary MAX file format and extension.Version 9 has a PDF file generator, and the MAX file viewer may eventually go the way of the dinosaur.Only this company's products use it, and it's not directly supported in Windows.Company mergers and buyouts happen all of the time, but I have a feeling that PDF will be supported for many many years to come.Version 8 will store MOST PDF files, but won't generate them from scanned pages. Some encodings of PDF files will for some reason not open in version 8.Version 9 seems to handle them all.

If you only want to keep papers short term, this version is more than adequate.But if you're looking at 5-20 year retention, then you really should get the version 9 for the PDF capability. I say 5 years is critical, because future versions of Windows may eventually stop supporting this version of the program.For example, this software will NOT load on Windows 3.1...and may barely load on Windows 95.Operating systems do move ahead, and companies often just release new software to keep up.

Manages to barely keep up, but the basic product is great
I have used Paperport for years.It is an outstanding product with wonderful features.Version 8.0 Deluxe is the best yet and worth the upgrade.Unfortunately, in spite of some nice new features, there are some old things that don't work anymore or have been put in out of the way places so they are no longer readily accessable.In spite of that I am happy with the upgrade to 8.0 because of its improved robustness.

As a new user, be aware that there are also certain bugs and usability problems that never get fixed.And occassionally they re-arrange the user interface for the worse.Why they can't put functions that I use a lot on the toolbars or allow customizable toolbars, I'll never know.There is a long list of suggested bug fixes and wish list features I sent them years ago, none of which have been addressed.

They don't really seem to listen to the user community or to make changes other than to add "features" that they can use to sell new users or encourage upgrades (typical software company).

That said, the core feature set is worth having.I consider it a necessary piece of software, in just the same way a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Web Browser, Email reader are necessary.This is a Document Storage and Filing system.

You can store scanned documents in PP. It has a builtin OCR engine.You can print documents to PP (ie. print a web page you want to always have offline into PP via a "dummy" printer).You can just drag a Word or Excel, etc document into PP.You can stack and unstack pages.Straighten scanned pages (others don't need it).And you can store photos (jpgs, gifs, tifs, etc). It also has some ok photo manipulation, cut and paste, crop, etc type of features.

Paperport, works great with a few minor problems
I am upgrading from Pagis scanning software produced by the same company. I decided to upgrade to Paperport 8.0 last week (3/10/03) Right after I got my copy I saw on the Scansoft website that a new version is out already, 9.0. An upgrade is listed as $....

The program works fine. Seems a little less powerful in some of the editing and file manipulation abilities of pagis. It works better with Windows XP. One glitch, it cannot directly import my Pagis files with an *.XIF format! I have read that the new version (9.0) has a pagis importer built in.

My overall comment: If you are upgrading from Pagis wait for version 9.0 to be widely available. So I now have to upgrade or buy the newer version to have XIF compatibility?

Get organized and paperless easily
I upgradedtoPaperport 8whenI will upgraded to Windows XP.I have been using Paperport for many years.I keep hard copies very few documents.Other than my tax return, pretty much everything else is filed electronically.

I originally used PaperPort to organize my scanned documents but have found that it allows me to have a virtually paperless office.With PaperPort, you can create folders and subfolders just as you would organize a file cabinet.You can scan your documents to these different folders.Even better, you can select PaperPort as your printer and print directly to PaperPort.For example if you purchased something online, you would "print" the receipt to your designated PaperPort folder and never have to deal with a sheet of paper.You can similarly store downloaded items from the Internet, such as a bill or bank statement.You can electronically file any document from any application that allows you to print.

It's easy-to-use interface also allows you to drag the scanned item to different applications you might have, such as your faxing software, Outlook, or Adobe Acrobat. You can also use it to save a file into jpeg or other formats.

I have not experienced the CPU drain that others describe.I am using PaperPort on a computer with 512 MB of RAM. ... Read more

Product Description

Presto! PageManager 6 turns your computer into an extremely organized filing system. You can easily convert paper documents into editable files and efficiently manage text and image files created with programs like Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat (PDF). You will have the ability to share your files on other computers without any problems. ... Read more

Features

• Turn your documents into PDF files in one click.
• Manage and browse Microsoft Office documents.
• File, annotate, print, copy, fax, OCR, e-mail and more.
• Supports TWAIN or WIA-compliant scanners and digital cameras.

Product Description

Presto! OCR Pro 4.0 is the best OCR for "real-life" documents. The Scan & Read Wizard takes you step-by-step to scan any document, article, or letter in color, grayscale, or black-and-white. It accurately recognizes 40 languages, even several languages on a page. It even retains the original text formatting and page layout -- including text, tables, columns, and graphics -- and sends recognition results to popular word processors and spreadsheets. ... Read more

Features

• Reads documents with "Human Eye" precision.
• The best OCR for "Real-Life" documents.
• Scan & Read Wizard guides you through OCR.
• Recognizes 40 languages.

Product Description

PDF Converter Pro ... Read more

Features

• Automated batch creation; merge documents; watermarks and stamps
• PDF Create! and PDF Converter for Microsoft Word combined
• Create industry-standard PDF files; password protection
• Convert PDF files into editable Microsoft Word documents and forms
• Easily extract charts and graphs from PDF files for use elsewhere

Reviews (10)

Waste ofmoney
First of all, the required registration and fingerprinting of your machine is quite intrusive and cumbersome.
Second, in converting pdf to Word files, it doesn't really do any useable formatting that can be easily editted, instead it creates a bunch of text boxes all over the page (rather then using tabs or tables). I was tring to convert a resume to a different format, working with a pdf original. In the end I had to convert it to plain text and start formatting from scratch, which I could have done just using the Adobe Acrobat text copy tool. Save your money, I wish I had done some research first.

You get what you pay for
I have Adobe 6.0 professional. Most of the time I use Adobe to convert file to PDF. I bought this software hoping to get cheaper product for our company new computer with the comparable quality. The software does convert the file to PDF. However, it considerbly increases the file size.
I convert some documents using both Adobe and this software to compare.
Adobe compressed the file from 200 KB to 20 KB
This software increase the file size from 200 KB to 688 KB!
Changing the settingalso makes no difference.

Not recommend this software if you're looking for the product to compress the file.

Absolutely Terrible License Management...Lousy Service Too
ScanSoft has been nothing but difficult to deal with in resolving a problem that their own license management system created.

Every few weeks the application manages to forget that it is not an evaluation copy and begins dysfunctionally labeling every page it generates with that annoying "Evaluation Version" diagonally laced across every page it produces.

I paid fully for my copy of this product and naively assumed that a call to customer support would resolve this issue.It didn't.Instead, I was told that I'd have to call technical support (not an 800 number -- but not to worry, the "first call" is for no charge... oh yipee...)

Note to all customer service departments:NEVER, EVER, send a customer away with instructions to call someone else in your company instead.Make sure your customer service people can call and patch through customers on their own.The only thing more annoying to a client than having to work through a phone menu system ONCE to reach a flesh-and-blood person is having to do it TWICE with no guarantee of being closer to the solution than before.

So I called "technical services."After answering enough questions to fill an autobiography from the person who picked up the line, it was suggested that I "try" reinstalling the software (as if I had nothing better to do with my time and as if I had not been through THAT exercise enough times before).I suggested that whatever the solution to this issue was, it was definitely NOT THAT.Then the gentlemen indicated that he'd need a copy of the receipt (why did he not say so in the first place instead of suggesting I find yet more ways to waste my time?)

I suggested to him that he'd best put his supervisor on the line as he had a very angry customer on his hands.After a prolonged period of being on hold, on my own long-distance dime, I hung up.

That friends, is ScanSoft's approach to customer relations.They treat you like a questionably legitimate user by default and if their license management system screws up -- it must be (in their view) something YOU did.Nice, huh.

As for the product itself, it's okay.I noticed that it seemed to have issues with some graphics, whereas the original version with some graphics would print crisply directly out of Word, the PDF version was a bit jagged (even on the screen).

If ScanSoft had not wasted so much of my time with the license issue and completely lost my goodwill, I might have had more time to more seriously explore the product and say more.

The review below about the faulty design does echo a few things I noticed too.

Suffice to say that I doubt that I'll ever be considering ScanSoft products in the future.This experience has left a sufficiently bad taste in my mouth that I'll probably recommend my clients stay away from them too.

Glitches and shortcomings in software products is something I can learn to live with (if they aren't too bad).But contempt and indifference toward paying customers is unforgivable and inexcusable.

Another Poor Software Design
Interesting product, but just another one that has been added to the long list of software products that lack the fundamental design principles.The product's sales people try to make up for the lack of fundamental design flaws with unfounded and inaccurate claims. i.e.

1. "Turn PC files into optimized, small file-size PDF documents".I believe the person that wrote this did not have a strong understanding of the English language.I purchased the product to allow a PowerPoint slide file (file size 578K) to be emailed in a "small file-size".ScanSoft PDF Converter Professional 2.0 turned the file into a five (5) times larger file!Even with ScanSoft technical support on the phone with me for almost an hour, the smallest size was over 2000K!

2. "System Requirements...Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 or above".What I did not see listed was a requirement for a active internet connection.What a surprise to find that I actually have to be actively connected to get the activation process to work.What private information is ScanSoft collecting off my computer?I purchased a legitimate retail version from a Office Depot, a legitimate retailer.Why is ScanSoft so paranoid?What other design flaws have they included, due to their paranoia?

Here are some other interesting concerns:

3. During the installation process, there is no option to tell the software not to install in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.What a surprise when I open up my PowerPoint to find that it takes five (5) times longer to load! Instead of 2 seconds, it now takes 10 seconds!Why did it take so long? Well, ScanSoft has now decided to load itself into every Microsoft product on my computer!It was not happy with just loading itself as a printer driver, it loaded itself on all my Office main menus and in my submenus!What else has it done without me knowing?Is it also sending my private information off somewhere?ScanSoft looks more like a SpyWare program than a PDF converter.

4. Now for the software return process...if you like to jump through hoops, try a return.I call up to return the product and I get what I think are the requirements.FAX a copy of the receipt and wait for a check.Sorry, the next day I get five (5) emails telling me five different things that I have to do from three (3) different people.Does this sound like out-sourcing?Yes!!!This explains it all to me.(I digress, this is a review of ScanSoft PDF Convertor 2.0, not of out-sourcing!)

5. Well, I think that I have jumped through all their hoops, now I will wait for a check.Does "check is in the mail" sound familiar?I wonder how long it takes a check to travel from India to the US?

6. The adventure is not over yet.Now, I have to clean up all the garbage on my hard drive and in my registry that the ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2.0 Uninstaller program left.What no Uninstaller program? I sure hope that the Windows XP Add/Remove program can work properly!But it relies on an installation list provided by ScanSoft!I am in trouble.Yes, it is time to manually edit my System Registry (Do not try this at home.This a job for a technical professional.)

7. ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2 is a great example of how not to design and implement software!Yes, it is only $99 which looks like a lot better deal than Adobe Acrobat.How many dollars have I wasted trying to get ScanSoft to do what the sales people wrote on the box?How many dollars am I going to waste trying to get ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2.0 off my computer?

Here is my advice:
A. Buy software products with caution
B. Do your research (read reviews)
C. Beware of software products that have major software design flaws.
D. With poorly designed software the total cost is not what you paid the retailer for it!
E. Outsourcing is not the answer for technical support!

What a value compared to Acrobat!
Our school just bought 10 copies of this product instead of Adobe Acrobat - we are a small private school and couldn't afford what they were charging.We use this product to create PDFs when we send out grades.It is perfect becuase we can "lock" the files so only the parents can open them to see their children's grades.Before we began using this we were sending out paper ccopies that frequently got lost by the (K-6) students.This so so much better.Thankyou ScanSoft! ... Read more

Features

• Enfocus PitStop Professional, an Adobe Acrobat plug-in, is the industry standard for PDF preflight, auto-correction and editing.
• Its award winning features and technology guarantee successful output.
• Powerful Certified PDF technology enables immediate visual feedback and allows you track every edit made to a PDF.
• Add/edit text in PDF documents
• Move, rotate, scale or shear objects

Product Description

A solution for instantly turning PDF files into Microsoft Word documents and forms that you can easily edit - complete with text, columns, tables, and graphics. PDF Converter 2 contains powerful new features that allow you to quickly convert proposals, contracts, letters and more into Microsoft Word documents for editing, saving valuable time and money. ... Read more

Features

• Processes PDF image files into Microsoft Word documents
• Instantly converts PDF files into Microsoft Word documents and forms
• Delivers an exact rendering of the original document's content
• Unmatched ease-of-use via the PDF Converter Assistant
• PDF passwords and encryption; PDF thumbnail preview and page ranges

Reviews (12)

doesn't work for scanned in documents
This only works on documents that have been electronically turned into pdfs NOT PDFs that have been created through scanning. So since nearly all the PDFs I work with are scanned in from books or journals, this product is worthless.ABBYY's PDF Trnasformer WILL do OCR on scanned in PDFs.It isn't perfect, but at least ABBYY's product is usefull for me.

Worse than useless
I bought this based on a Scansoft e-mail ad that made wonderful claims for the accuracy of the PDF to Word conversion capability.Boy was I disappointed!I have yet to see the first accurate conversion of anything more complicated than a simple non-letterhead typed page.I tried to use it to update a manual of about 70 pages and found that it took over twice as long to fix the mess that Scansoft PDF Converter made, than it did to completely re-publish the manual grahics and all.If this product was free it would be a poor bargain.

Save time reytyping PDF information
I bought this product on the positive recommendation at this site http://www2.vnunet.com/Products/Hardware/1158407 and agree with their assessment of it.

What's all the griping about this product's lack of support?No software company has excellent support - let alone ones that have $50 products.PDF Converter works fine for me on many different types of files.I haven't experienced any problems.I'd be happy if it got 75% of the conversion right, but it usually gets close to 100%.It saves me a lot of time retyping stuff from PDF files.I am using it almost every day.

Can't get along without it!
I work alot with PDF's and MS Office applications and this latest version converts from Word docs to PDF's perfectly.Converting PDF's back again in Word docs is pretty darn good with almost no corrections necessary most of the time.Its fast and stable as well. I also like to being able to "add" to PDF's by dragging and dropping into the PDF Create window.This makes it very simple to combine documents and email just one PDF to clients.

Great Product!
I just upgraded to version 2 of this product.I didn't have any problems with installation or activation.All of this carping over support.What do you expect for a $100 product?Get over it!In a few years all software will need to be activated.

That aside, the product itself works great.I can see why Adobe hates it.The PDF creation process is really simple and for $100 it is a great value.I originally bought this product for the PDF to Word convesion capabilities of technical manuals and have been very happy with the job it does, especially on large (over 100 pages)and table intensive files.The conversions are usually right on with only a minimal amount of corrections.The PDF creation is just a bonus as gar asI am concerned. ... Read more

Features

• Flowing text mode for easier editing; enhanced Autoformat technology
• Powerful OCR application with unbeatable speed and accuracy
• Convert paper documents and PDF files into editable text
• Output to Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, WordPerfect, and more
• New user interface; high-quality display of the document image

Reviews (2)

DISILLUSIONED
It's difficult to rate the product, as I never managed to complete a successful download. The support e-mail was no use at all, and after 35 (yes, 35) e-mails backwards and forwards I've given up any hope of getting a CD or my money back. I've told them to give the money to the tsunami appeal.

The product may be excellent, but the support - oh dear.

From a disllusioned Brit

great for scripts
This software allowed me to convert a script that I did not have a digital copy of in a few hours.It was simple and kept almost all the correct format.Unbelievable!I did not even know something like this was out until I bought a new printer/scanner and OCR software was on the CD. When I got this job I purchased ReadIris 9.0 and it more than paid for itself the first time I used it.Thank you IRIS! ... Read more

Product Description

ScanSoft PDF Create! is the fast, reliable and affordable way to turn all of your PC documents, drawings and images into industry-standard PDF files. ... Read more

Features

• Compatibility with PDF 1.5; does not require Adobe Acrobat
• Quickly turn PC documents, drawings, and images into PDF files
• Compressed file sizes; batch conversion of multiple files at a time
• Advanced font embedding, graphics, and page-size controls
• Password security with 128-bit encryption; watermarks and stamps

Reviews (5)

Horrible for Saving Web Pages
One of the common uses for a pdf conversion program is to save snapshots of web pages (for archiving, etc.). However, Create 2.0 does a HORRIBLE job of converting webpages to pdf format - a lot of graphical information is lost. Just try creating a snapshot of yahoo.com - you will end up with something noticably different from what you would see in a browser. For "website to pdf" conversion, use one of many free online services such as at http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/pdf-o-matic.php. If Scansoft Create can't even handle web page converson, which is pretty simple, I'm not too hopeful that it will do a good job with other formats.

Works well, and as advertised
I'm very happy with this. This product allows you to create a pdf file from any printable document. I've used it so far with Word and Excel, and it worked very well. It also allows you to combine multiple existing pdf files into a single pdf document. It works by either "printing" to the Scansoft printer; clicking a toolbar button in MS-Office applications; or right-clicking on an existing document. There are also a number of standard and advanced settings for your documents, such as including various watermarks or changing the compression ratio.

The only annoyance is that after you install it, you must activate it online (there is a telephone option also). Without the activation, you get a watermark printed across any pdf you create. I suppose this is necessary though, since so many people pirate software. I installed it on my two computers and was able to activate both times, but I don't know what the limitations are.

I do not have experience with the Adobe Acrobat product, so I can't compare it to that. And of course, you cannot edit existing pdf files like the full version.

All in all, this product works as advertised and is reasonably priced. Five stars.

Adobe look out!
I work at a legal firm and we bought this product instead of Acrobat.The pricing was unbeleiveable.Why does Adobe charge so much for the same thing?Maybe because there was no competition.This reminds me of what happened we Lexus started making luxury cars - BMW and Mercedes were forced to take notice.Isn't being a consumer in this kind of market great?

Great alternative to Acrobat
This gives me PDF 1.5, passwords and other full-Acrobat features at a fraction of the price.I did read another review on its toolbar shortcuts in Outlook - PDF Create! and Adobe Acrobat have the identical behavior and limitation of Word is the editor for Outlook.Overall, I think the batch processing and merging of many documents into a single PDF as the best feature.

Does not work with MS Word!
Scansoft's PDF Create 2.0 does not work with MS Word when MS Word is used as the email editor in Outlook.The PDF Create toolbar and buttons do not appear in this situation, so there is no way to create a PDF document that has links.You can still print to the PDF print driver (which is Scansoft's "solution" to this problem).But printing does not preserve heading information for creating proper PDF files that have bookmarks.Scansoft's other "solution" to this problem is to stop using MS Word as the Outlook editor. ... Read more

Amazon.com Product Description

Abbyy Fine Reader 5 Pro for Mac is optical recognition software developed especially for the Mac and includes many features, some unique to the Mac version of the software. Toolbars, icons, and dialog boxes are all designed to work seamlessly with the Mac OS Appearance Manager. All core Apple OS technologies are supported, including QuickTime, Apple Speech Recognition, AppleScript, Drag and Drop, and Navigation Services.

A built-in editor lets you edit the image layout manually. Edit recognized text while looking at an image of the source text in the Zoom window. The built-in spell checker will search text for misspelled words in mere seconds. Version 5 supports batch document processing, allowing you to save source images, batch options, and recognized texts in the same folder. The system supports direct launch from Microsoft Word and background recognition. You can also train the system to recognize new characters. ... Read more

Features

• Mac-like user-friendly interface
• Superior recognition quality with ABBYY's new IPA (Integrity, Purposefulness and Adaptability) technology
• Full retention of source document layout including columns, tables, pictures, fonts, and more
• Convert documents into Web pages with fast Internet publishing
• Save documents in PDF format

Reviews (1)

OCR alternative
... It scans fairly quick, has simple directions, and sends the pages to Claris Works. It picks up drawings well and is a really great OCR program. ... Read more

Amazon.com Product Description

TextBridge Pro incorporates powerful optical character recognition (OCR) technology and an easy-to-use interface so you can quickly convert paper documents into fully editable text files, complete with the original layouts. Files produced by TextBridge Pro are compatible with many word-processing, desktop-publishing, database, and spreadsheet applications. It comes with recognition for English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish. ... Read more

Features

• Enfocus Instant PDF closes the communication gap between the creative and production process.
• InstantPDF provides document creators and receivers the functionality to achieve consistent PDF output and quality control.
• Enfocus Instant PDF 3 removes the uncertainty and technical complexity from the PDF creation process.
• No other application so intuitively and reliably creates Certified PDFs that comply with your print or advertisement vendors’ specifications.

Product Description

Adobe® Acrobat® 7.0 Professional software is the advanced way to create, control, and deliver more secure, high-quality Adobe PDF documents. Assemble electronic or paper fileseven Web sites, engineering drawings, and e-mailinto reliable PDF documents that are easy to share with others using free Adobe Reader® 7.0 software.

Features:

• Enjoy improved performanceWith improved performance you can quickly convert, collect, and organize Adobe PDF documents.
• Extend commenting capabilities Enable anyone who uses free Adobe Reader® 7.0 software to actively participate in reviews.
• Easily design Adobe PDF forms Use Adobe LiveCycle™ Designer 7.0 software (now included with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 ProfessionalWindows® only) to create PDF forms that look like the paper forms they replace. Incorporate business logic, such as calculations and data validations.
• Organize Adobe PDF documents Quickly find a list of Adobe PDF documents you have recently opened. View them as thumbnails, and drag and drop files into related collections.
• Enjoy improved attachment capabilities Easily attach source documents such as spreadsheets, multimedia files, images, and drawings to an Adobe PDF document.

Features

• Enable anyone with free Adobe Reader 7.0 software to use highlighter, sticky note, pen, and other commenting tools
• Protect documents with passwords, certificates, and other security controls
• Create PDF files with the click of a button from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer
• Create a single Adobe PDF document from multiple sources, including portions of Web pages and previously combined Adobe PDF documents
• Easily attach source documents such as spreadsheets, multimedia files, images, and drawings to an Adobe PDF document

Amazon.com Product Description

OmniPage Pro 12 is a powerful productivity application that delivers accurate document conversion, turning PDF and paper letters, contracts, tables, and manuals into editable word processing and spreadsheet documents. Ideal for desktop, workgroup, and enterprise users, OmniPage Pro 12 delivers everything you need to convert, edit, process, and share your paper and PDF documents.

OmniPage Pro 12 saves you time by eliminating the need to manually reproduce documents and spreadsheets, delivering highly precise, editable results that can be used in your existing PC applications. It saves you money by replacing manual filing with electronic storage and retrieval. 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. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Greatest thing since sliced bread
As I am writing this review OmniPage Pro 12 is whirring away in the background.
I was just minding my own business trying to scan a hard copy report that was made form an 84 page spread sheet. All I got was vertical words. Then it happened; the system said if I wanted the real thing to buy an OmniPage Pro 12 upgrade. All that money for 84 pages? Then I thought of retyping all those pages and it was a no brainier.
I opened the package and started to read the manual. After about five minutes I just decided to take the plunge and put the CD in. five minutes later and the system had installed and checked out the scanner and chose the best approach to scanning to OCR. I used the OmniPage interface once and after playing around realized it was telling me how to use itself with a one-two-three step. Then I realized what the manual was saying and found that I could operate the process even easer from the Microsoft Word program. It works like a charm with no interference to any other process. The scan and OCR calculated that I was copying a table and created one that was appropriate. It even recognized that the page was placed in landscape. I have not tried Excel yet but if it works as well I could kick my self for not doing this earlier.
For those interested this is an XP system.

not clear it's worth the upgrade from 11
I like the new batch mechanism, which has an "output file per input file" option.I haven't particularly noticed a stability problem (Win2K SP4 + OP12 SP1/2).However, the deal with the PDFs is this: when OP12 reads an image PDF, it will only save such PDFs as grayscale (if you ask for image/image+text), and OP12 can only save grayscale/color PDFs at 150dpi.Hence, if you have bi-level input PDFs at >150dpi resolution, you get enormous, ugly 150dpi grayscale output PDFs.On the other hand, OP12 can handle high resolution TIFFs just fine (i.e., it will save them as image/image+text PDFs with the correct resolution).This makes absolutely no sense and is a big step backward from OP11.As the other reviewer notes, they appear not to have any intention of fixing this in OP12.

Omnipage Pro 12 Loves to Crash
Omnipage Pro 12 loves to crash. So much so, that it is impossible to batch convert a folder of files to Adobe Acrobat .pdf "image with text", which is the only really useful Adobe Acrobat format. Here we are in the year 2003, and software developers still haven't figured out how to gracefully exit their programs when the unexpected happens. Ominpage Pro 12 simply cannot deal with Adobe Acrobat .pdf formats well. Review the user groups on Scansoft's website, and you will see two major problems with its Acrobat compatibility. The first is when using Scansoft on an existing .pdf image file. Importing the .pdf file, capturing the text, and saving the file as .pdf "image with text" (which is supposed to save the ORIGINAL image with searchable background text) causes the image to degrade. Don't ask me why, but the image in the output file is not the same quality as the imported .pdf image. So to work around this issue, I started scanning our documents into .tif format (600x600) on our high speed scanner, and then importing the .tifs into Scansoft, for conversion to .pdf "image with text". The resulting .pdf files were graphically sharper than when I had imported existing .pdf files. The big problem is that running the Omnipage Pro 12 "Schedule OCR" on the folder of .tif files, Omnipage Pro 12 simply crashes at random places in the conversion process. No graceful exit. No warning. To summarize, Scansoft's Omnipage Pro 12 is inadequate to save files as .pdf "image with text". It crashes. And this happens on both a Windows 98 PC and a Windows 2000 PC, so it's not a PC-specific issue. Scansoft wants to charge you money to submit a problem form. Imagine, paying them to spend time addressing their own mistake! This is a bad way to conduct business.

Very Productive Tool ! It's killing Adobe too expensive ;-)
Don't hesitate Omnipage is excellent ! and you will save a lot of money compared to Adobe's products.

Useful but not as good as FineReader overall
I do a great deal of OCR in my research and have scanned thousands of pages each with OmniPage Pro 12 (OP12) and FineReader 6 (FR6). I have also made extensive use of previous versions of both programs. I am happy to have both, because they excel at different things. For my work, however, if I had to choose just one it would have to be FR6. Others might have different preferences depending on what they do and what their equipment and software are.

The bulk of my scanning/OCR involves academic articles and historical materials. For the most part I produce PDF files, although I also scan some tables to produce spreadsheets and do some scanning to Word files. Depending on the quality of the original and my precise purpose I may make a PDF with an image and hidden text, an OCR text file, or an OCR text file with images of uncertain words. I use an HP 7450 scanner connected to a Windows 2000 system with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor and 512 MB of RAM.

For my purposes, OP12's outstanding feature is the quality of its grayscale and color scans. In fact, I even sometimes use it to produce images for processing by FR6. Generally speaking, the PDF image files produced by OP12 seem to run about 80% smaller than those that FR6 produces for equal text quality -- and better rendition of photos! This is not true for black-and-white (1 bit) files, where FR6 seems to have a slight edge. But when the material calls for image output I usually click on OP12.

OCR is another story, for several reasons. First of all, when the going gets tough, OP12 quits in a huff. It will suddenly crash no warning whatever. This seems to be OCR-related, but if it happens while scanning the chances of recovering your already-scanned work are poor. For this reason, I always scan and recognize separately with OP12, since then the crashes usually do not corrupt the scanned images. Depending on the complexity of the material, I may get a crash anywhere from one in every 20 to one in 100 pages.

Naturally, separate scanning and recognition slows the process down. On top of that, OP12 is very slow to start with, at least with "only" a 1.8GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM and all other applications closed. When I need fast results or cannot tolerate crashes I use FR6, which is distinctly faster and seems nearly bulletproof.

Moreover, when accuracy of scanning counts, OP12 is next to useless for my purposes. That's because it is very weak on anything but straight text. Superscripts all look like quotation marks to it and subscripts all come out as commas. It is also very poor with any sort of special symbols or equations. Nor is there any way to correct these mistakes in the editing process -- you're forced to edit the PDFs with Adobe Acrobat, a very slow and laborious process. If you have material with as many superscripts, subscripts, and special symbols as the typical academic article, it is really faster to retype it than to try to do it with OP12. FR6, by contrast, gives reasonably good accuracy with such material and makes it easy to correct the mistakes that do crop up.

In a surprising number of cases, OP12 will rotate the page so that the text is not upright and then proceed "recognize" it as garbage. FR6 is not immune to this, but does it significantly less often.

FR6 is sometimes wrong but never in doubt -- it has never reported being unable to complete OCR of a page, no matter how complex. OP12 is easily confused, especially when the page mixes text and tables, and then insists that you manually zone the page before it will proceed.

Both programs offer an "auto-special" completely automatic mode that will do a decent job on simple material (assuming that OP12 doesn't crash in the middle). When you need to customize settings, however, FR6 offers more range of choices. It also offers more flexibility in correcting recognition errors and in manual zoning, should that be necessary.

Surprisingly for a version 12, OP12 has a great many glitches, bugs, oddities, and time-wasting annoyances that make it seem more like an early beta. About 20% of the PDFs it produces are unreadable -- it's important always to check. The early FineReader versions were extremely rough, but FR6 is a very stable and finished product.

As I say, I don't regret the money I've spent on either of them. However, FR6 is more generally useful, faster, and trouble-free -- and significantly cheaper. If the maker of FR6, ABBYY, would fix their scanning (something I've suggested to them several times) it would clearly be the preferable program. As things are, OP12 fills some needs better.

Will O'Neil ... Read more