ABBYY ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH 
OF THE MACINTOSH VERSION OF FINE READER 

The Award-winning OCR Goes Mac!

CeBIT, Germany (March 22nd, 2001) ùABBYY Software House is proud to announce the summer launch of the most Mac-like fully-functional OCR software in the world û ABBYY FineReader 4.0 for Mac. It includes the ultimate recognition engine (see the list of comparative tests at www.abbyy.com ) and a new easy-to-use elegant Mac-style interface. Mac and OCR devotees alike will marvel at the near-human recognition capabilities of this new optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

ôAccording to recent marketing reports, almost 7% of scanners sold worldwide are used with Macintosh systems. Therefore it seemed only natural that we should provide those users with the most accurate OCR system in the worldö,- says Sergey Andreyev, CEO of ABBYY Software House, ôWe have done our best to maintain the unprecedented quality of FineReader, and to create alongside an easy-to-use Mac-compliant interface.ö

Toolbars, icons, and dialogue boxes have all been designed to work seamlessly with the Mac OS Appearance Manager, and FineReader 4.0 for Mac supports all key Apple technologies, including QuickTime, Drag-and-Drop, and Navigation Services. With AppleScript, FineReader 4.0 for Mac can be run from scripts, thus allowing repetitive tasks to be automated.

ôOur aim is to provide the highest degree possible of recognition automation, so this version not only features superior recognition quality, but also flawless document layout analysis, i.e. the marking out of various objects in the image e.g. text, tables, pictures and so on. Designed especially for the Mac FineReader, it includes many great features, some available for the very first time, and only on the Macintosh version,ö - Natasha Bril, FineReader Marketing Manager.

Functions: 

• FineReader 4.0 for Mac recognises documents in any of 53 languages (see the complete list at www.abbyy.com).
• Scan&Read button û the computer automatically scans and reads the text. The Scan&Read wizard walks the user through the OCR process, allowing them to easily change the OCR settings to get the professional-looking document of their choice.
• FineReader supports the widest number of image formats, including images in TIFF and PICT formats originating from fax modems and other sources.
• FineReader works with scanners via the Twain interface or by using the PowerPC Adobe Photoshop Import Plugin (plugin). 
  

Document Saving Formats

Text (Unicode, ANSI, MAC), RTF (MS Word 98 or higher, Apple Works 5.0 or higher), MS Excel, HTML, DBF, CSV, PDF. 

Software and Hardware Requirements:

• PowerPC compatible computer, G3 or higher power processor recommended
• MacOS: System 8.5 or later (Russian version required to work with the Russian interface), MacOS X (Classic Environment only)
• 32 MB RAM (64 Mb recommended). If 32 MB RAM is used, 80 MB of virtual memory is required
• Free hard disk space: 80 Mb for installation and 20 Mb for system running 
• 100% Twain-compatible scanner, digital camera, fax-modem or scanner accessible via the PowerPC Adobe Photoshop Import Plugin
• CD-ROM drive

Integrity, Purposefulness and Adaptability

FineReader 4.0 for Mac was designed using IPA principles: Integrity, Purposefulness, and Adaptability. IPA technology was developed by ABBYY researchers following observations of human and animal behaviour. Humans and animals learn to recognise images by proposing hypotheses and then purposefully verifying them. ABBYY uses the same approach in its OCR software.

Integrity: an object for recognition is recognised as such by using a set of basic elements and examining the relations between them. Only if all the defined elements are present is the object recognised as being of a particular type. 

Purposefulness: FineReader uses a unique approach to distinguish problematic characters. When analysing an object, the software purposefully looks for features which it expects to encounter in an object of that type. The result is high recognition accuracy. 

Adaptability: This refers to the programÆs ability to adapt itself by intelligent learning or through training.

For further information about FineReader products, visit our website at 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