Illustrator versus freehand. PageMaker versus QuarkXPress. Word versus WordPerfect. Add OmniPage Pro and TextBridge Pro to the list of classic two-horse rivalries in the Mac-applications field. Caere's OmniPage family has set the pace in OCR (optical character recognition) on the Mac for most of the last decade, but in recent years, Xerox's lower-cost TextBridge has come on strong.
With new releases from both companies -- OmniPage Pro 6.0 and the first Pro version of TextBridge -- the competition looks tighter than ever, and you may have a tough time deciding where to place your bets. But after putting both through their paces, we found a winner -- and it wasn't even a photo finish.
What's New
The latest OmniPage promises improved accuracy and performance, but what most users will notice are the new features. You can now have the program enter text directly into other applications (a trick that previously required a separate application, OmniPage Direct). An option called True Page, which used to be available only for Windows, preserves a document's layout when the document is scanned and recognized. A new suite of custom Apple events makes it possible to control nearly all OmniPage features through scripts. And to help you put your documents onto the Web, you can now save processed pages in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) format, but only basic formatting tags are supported.
TextBridge Pro's new-features list mirrors OmniPage Pro 6.0's. Highlights include direct input into other applications, HTML output, and even better AppleScript support than what OmniPage offers (macros are recordable as well as scriptable). In response to Caere's True Page, TextBridge Pro offers a different solution: It enables you to output a scanned document to WordPerfect 3.1 or 3.5 or to Microsoft Word 6.0.1 with most formatting remaining intact.
Putting Them to the Test
In most of our tests, TextBridge Pro proved a bit faster than OmniPage Pro 6.0 but not significantly so. In terms of accuracy, both programs did a good -- although rarely letter-perfect -- job of handling pages of plain text in standard fonts and sizes. With anything more challenging -- small type, complex layouts, or faxed originals, for example -- both programs made plenty of errors.
Generally, however, OmniPage's output was closer to the mark than TextBridge's. When we scanned a newspaper sidebar listing nine Web addresses, for example, both programs made mistakes in all nine, but with OmniPage, five of them needed to have only a single character changed.
If OmniPage wins by only a nose in accuracy, it leads by several lengths in two other areas: usability and resource requirements. OmniPage's user interface is straightforward and attractive; for most operations, you simply click on the Auto button. In case you are uncertain, there are two Apple Guides and Balloon Help.
With TextBridge, on the other hand, our experience was one of frequent confusion and some irritation, starting from the moment we discovered that a standard installation had littered our Extensions folder and Chooser with more than 20 scanner drivers. The program's tool-bar buttons are cryptic, and there are no labels or tool tips to explain them (although you can avail yourself of Balloon Help and an Apple Guide). Tasks that require only one click in OmniPage often demand two, three, or four in TextBridge. And the Apple-menu utility that launches TextBridge for input into other programs never remembers where its parent application is located.
Most important, TextBridge gives you no way to edit the text it produces; for that you need to jump to a word processor. In contrast, you can edit the text OmniPage generates within the program itself; to make it easier, questionable words are color-coded and a good spelling checker is built in. What's more, an Option-double-click anywhere in the document brings up an enlarged bitmap of that area of the source document so you can double-check results.
The last issue is memory. TextBridge Pro's suggested allocation on a PowerPC-based system is 11,720K (10,240K if virtual memory is on), which means you generally can't keep it and another major application open simultaneously on a 16-MB system. OmniPage Pro 6.0's suggested allocation of 6,832K (4,500K with virtual memory) leaves much more flexibility. Xerox's Apple-menu launch utility alone requests 384K; Caere's needs only a meager 32K.
The Bottom Line
Price used to be a big differentiator between these two programs. No more, at least in most cases: The OmniPage Pro 6.0 upgrade kit, available through retail channels for $149, installs the program on any hard disk on which it finds another application from Caere or former rival Calera. Most Mac scanners come with software from one of these companies, so if you've got a scanner, you're probably eligible. Upgrades from retail versions of OmniPage cost $99.
Xerox has an even broader offer: It will sell TextBridge Pro for $129 to anyone who owns a scanner or fax software. But our conclusion is that OmniPage Pro is well worth the $20 premium.
OmniPage Pro 6.0, $500 (estimated street). Company: Caere, Los Gatos, CA; 800-535-7226 or 408-395-7000; http://www.caere.com/. Reader Service: Circle #402.
TextBridge Pro, $275 (estimated street). Company: Xerox, Palo Alto, CA; 800-248-6550, ext. 3, or 415-813-6800; http://www.xerox.com/. Reader Service: Circle #403.
Unlike its rival, Xerox's TextBridge Pro, Caere's OmniPage Pro 6.0 shows you text as it is generated from scanned pages; TextBridge Pro lets you view the original page, but not the resultant text, during a scan.
