ABBYY SOFTWARE HOUSE RAISES THE STANDARD ON OCR: FineReader 5.0
ABBYY FineReader 5.0 Pro & ABBYY FineReader 5.0 Office -
The first giant step in OCR in two years
CeBIT,Germany (March 22nd, 2001) ù ABBYY Software House announced today that FineReader 5.0 is now available in
all European countries. Scanner and OCR devotees alike will marvel at the
near-human recognition capabilities of this new optical character recognition
(OCR) technology.
Developed from intensive research into artificial intelligence at one of the largest
Russian software companies, FineReader 5.0 raises the standard on performance in
terms of recognition accuracy, layout preservation and output format options.
FineReader 5.0 is the long-awaited upgrade of ABBYY FineReader 4.0, which
accumulated more than thirty awards since its release in 1998. FineReader 5.0
was in development for two years.
This latest version of FineReader offers many exciting new features and advances over
previous versions. The recognition accuracy has been improved by a factor of 1.5
to 2.0, depending on the material tested, ranging from high print quality to the
very poor print quality of a low-quality fax. Such improvements are significant
considering that recognition quality has been improved continually for several
decades. Several years ago experts prematurely predicted that OCR technology had
reached its limit with regard to recognition accuracy.
Layout retention has been a desirable feature of OCR for several years and was an
important focus in the development of the new ABBYY OCR technology. FineReader
5.0 is unsurpassed in layout retention. It recognises the number of columns, the
layout of the text, the formatting of tables and the placement of pictures. This
new version can easily determine when the user is scanning two pages at a time
from a book.
Demo Version
These and many more learned features of ABBYY give FineReader 5.0 an uncanny
capability to reproduce practically any printed page. A Demo version can be
downloaded from www.abbyy.com. Everything
looks just like the original ù but the OCR-recognised document is much more
useful than the original.
The ABBYY FineReader 5.0 OCR software is loaded with new recognition capabilities.
It recognises subscripts and superscripts as well as simple chemical formulas.
The recognition of vertical text, e.g., the text running along the vertical axis
of a graph or chart, is another improvement version 5.0 offers. It also fully
reproduces colour text. FineReader 5.0 can even determine when a picture is
embedded in the cell of a table.
FineReader 5.0 supports 121 languages in the European version (and 176 languages in the
Cyrillic Plus version) including programming languages like Basic, C++, COBOL,
Fortran and Java. The full list of languages supported by FineReader 5.0 is
given on the ABBYY Web site (www.abbyy.com).
Users will discover many new applications for this new and improved version
of OCR software in small office, home office and corporate settings.
The powerful new OCR engine and user-friendly interface eliminate many
of the shortcomings of previous generations of OCR software, which
have discouraged use in some applications.
Superior Scans In Seconds
In most cases, FineReader 5.0 output files are ready to open immediately from a
variety of desktop computer software applications. A new and useful feature is
that FineReader 5.0 can be run directly from MS Word. FineReader 5.0 software is
sensitive to the nuances of printed words as well as the idiosyncrasies of
software applications. It processes text, tables and forms from scanned pages
into ready-to-use electronic files in seconds. Users simply place a document on
a scanner, click the Scan&Read button and, in a few seconds, the document
appears in MS Word or other desktop applications. Gone are the days of endless
clicking and retyping to convert the document into the desired format.
Scanning Applications
New capabilities and the new high level accuracy make it practical to use OCR to
scan catalogues and other complex materials for loading onto websites.
FineReader 5.0 saves documents in HTML and PDF formats with full page-retention,
which is a new feature in great demand by users.
The amount of ôclean upö after scanning and OCR processing has been reduced to
practically nothing even for complex documents such as the pages from popular
magazines. FineReader 5.0 does the hard work. Scanned documents are converted
into finished electronic files instantly and effortlessly. New applications are
continually being discovered for this speedy, intelligent technology. Channel
groups are being formed for professionals to disseminate information on the use
of OCR technology by professionals in various occupations.
"We have seen an amazing response since the launch of FR5.0 in November and are sure
this strong increase in sales will continue with this superb product" said
Jupp Stöpetie, Managing Director of ABBYY Europe; "The use of
IPA-technology makes this product more accurate and intelligent than competitive
products, which do not use IPA. Users typically begin to understand the
possibilities of 5.0 after just a few minutes of training."
Integrity, Purposefulness and Adaptability
FineReader 5.0 was designed based on the principles of IPA: Integrity, Purposefulness and
Adaptability are the keys to recognition. ABBYY researchers developed this the
IPA-technology from observations of human and animal behaviour. Humans and
animals learn to recognise images by proposing hypotheses and then purposefully
verifying them. ABBYY applies this same principle in OCR.
Integrity: an object for recognition is described as an integral object by using a set of
basic elements and relationships between them. The object is only recognised as
a particular object if all the defined elements are present.
Purposefulness: FineReader then uses a unique approach to distinguish problematic characters.
When analysing the object, the software purposefully looks for features, which
are expected to be there. The result is an improvement in recognition accuracy.
Adaptability: the programÆs ability to adapt itself by intelligent learning or through
training.
FineReader 5.0 applies the IPA-technology to page layouts. Previous versions of FineReader
simply divided a page into blocks of text, pictures and tables and then read
them. FineReader 5.0 uses IPA as the fundamental tool for layout maintenance,
which results in an unprecedented level of layout accuracy and low sensitivity
to printing defects.
FineReader 5.0 Office Edition
ABBYY FineReader Office edition works over a network and supports multiprocessing. It
also copes with unusual tasks such as barcode recognition and the creation of
new languages. The Office edition is the solution for networked environments,
corporate information systems or mass document input departments.
The Office edition interacts with external Document Management System (DMS) by
exporting files into through Open Document Management Access (ODMA), which is
the universal standard for corporate information systems.
The multiprocessing feature allows distributed document processing over the network,
which is well suited for mass document input. Document input speed can be
increased in direct proportion to the number of workstations installed on the
network.
The Office edition also includes a form-filling application, Formulator. First, the
user scans the form and the form appears on the computer screen in a few
seconds. Next, the user marks the blank fields, then completes the form using
the computer keypad to enter information into these blank fields on the screen.
Then the user prints the form. Formulator is fast and easy, and forgiving too
as, unlike a typewriter, it allows typos to be fixed without ruining the entire
form. Forget the typewriter; use Formulator.
FineReader 5.0 Pro Edition
The FineReader 5.0 Pro includes the same powerful optical character recognition
engine as the FineReader 5.0 Office Edition. The Pro user enjoys the same
recognition accuracy and layout retention features as the Office user, but it is
priced for individual use in the home or office, and it gives the same superior
results to the individual user as the Office edition gives to multiple users on
a network.
Pricing:
For the European Version offering 121 recognition languages:
FineReader 5.0 Pro ûEURO 110,20
FineReader 5.0 Pro Upgrade (*) û EURO 75,40
FineReader 5.0 Office û EURO 462,84
FineReader 5.0 Office Upgrade (*) û EURO 307,40
(* Sold exclusively by ABBYY offices or partners to registered users of a previous
version)
All prices are including 16% VAT. Prices may vary due to different VAT rates.
For further information about FineReader products, please visit our website www.abbyy.com
or contact us at sales@abbyyeu.com
About ABBYY Group
The ABBYY Group comprises ABBYY Software House (Moscow), ABBYY USA (Fremont, CA), ABBYY Ukraine (Kiev) and ABBYY Europe (Munich, Germany). ABBYY Software House has specialised in the development of software for OCR, ICR, dictionaries, semantics and electronic dictionaries. ABBYY´s products include the FineReader series of OCR/ICR/OMR* software - tools for automatically inputting text, tables and forms into computers, FineReader Development Tools, which enable the user to integrate OCR into their own solutions, and ABBYY Retrieval & Morphology Engine - SDK - a development tool that enables ABBYYÆs technology to be used in other software products. FineReader 4.0/5.0 received 35 awards from leading IT magazines worldwide. Siemens Nixdorf, Samsung Electronics, Sumitomo Electric Systems, L&H/Kurzweil, Bantec (Japan), Visionshape, Jet Fax, NewSoft, Primax and Microtek are all companies that have licensed the ABBY OCR/ICR technology. For further information:
www.abbyy.com
|