What's New in OmniPage Pro 9.0

If you're familiar with OmniPage Pro 8.0, you'll find that OmniPage Pro 9.0 includes a host of new and enhanced features that make OCR more accurate, more robust, and easier to use than ever before. Check out these great new features:

• New color support. OmniPage Pro supports scanning and loading color documents. Version 9.0 maintains color graphics on your scanned pages and displays them in all OmniPage Pro views including thumbnail, image, and text, as well as in the word processor. Color graphics are saved at 150 dots per inch in your word processor or other text-based application.
• New support for table objects. OmniPage Pro can automatically identify a gridded table (with lines dividing the rows and columns) and recreate it as a table object in Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect. When a table image is not gridded, you can indicate that it should be treated as a table object during the zoning process. If you prefer, you can also choose to save the table with tabs between each column.

  Additionally, Version 9.0 adds new tools that enable you to manipulate tables. You can move or remove selected row or column dividers, insert single column or row dividers, or remove all row and column dividers at once. These tools are easily accessible on the new Table Toolbar for changing table properties.

• New spreadsheet recognition capabilities. OmniPage Pro 9.0 includes a new mode specifically designed for spreadsheets. Version 9.0 adds a spreadsheet option on the Auto Zone button on the AutoOCR toolbar as well as to the Page Format settings in the Options dialog box. When a document is identified as a spreadsheet, it will be analyzed and recognized in ways that are optimized for rows and columns of data. The OCR Wizard also includes a spreadsheet option. In addition, the program is better equipped to properly preserve columnar data. For example, OmniPage Pro can ensure that spreadsheet data appears in the correct cells in Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, and Quattro Pro.
• Improved handling of single column documents. Version 9.0 is better at automatically parsing single column documents, particularly in the default mode (which is "mixed pages" mode). This improvement is extremely important for documents such as legal pleadings which are single-column documents but include a column of numbers to the left of each line. This column of numbers can confuse many OCR applications, which recreate these pages as multiple-column documents and separate the row number identifiers from the text. This improvement is also important for pages that include single column text mixed with a non-gridded table or other single column areas with varying paragraph widths. In addition, when "single-column" is selected by the user, OmniPage Pro can now maintain graphics on the page.
• Optimized for Pentium II and MMX PCs. OmniPage Pro is optimized for the extended MMX instruction set. You will see a 15% improvement in speed over non-MMX systems.
• More comprehensive OCR Wizard. Version 9.0 provides an enhanced OCR Wizard that asks new questions to improve the OCR results. For example, you are now prompted to identify whether they want to scan in color, grayscale, or black and white. Also, the OCR Wizard enables you to select languages in the document. With the Wizard, you can also improve accuracy by indicating when pages include tables or reversed-out text.
• New re-sizeable OCR Proofreader. Caere's OCR Proofreader (formerly Check Recognition) works like a spell checker and enables you to verify OCR results while viewing the relevant portion of the original image. Version 9.0 now provides the ability to re-size the Proofreader so you can see more of the original image while proofreading.
• Better handling of reversed-out text. OmniPage Pro more accurately detects reversed-out text (light text on dark background) as text. This is particularly useful when working with magazine-type pages, which often include reversed-out text.
• PageKeeper Standard document management software included. Version 9.0 includes Caere's PageKeeper Standard document management for OCR users who want an easy and intuitive way to manage both scanned paper and electronic documents. PageKeeper Standard allows users to organize, find, and use documents on their PCs. The two programs are very closely integrated. If Version 9.0 and PageKeeper are installed, the "Add to PageKeeper" option will appear in OmniPage Pro's Save As dialog box. This way documents can be automatically added to PageKeeper for easy search and retrieval. Also, OmniPage Pro is available on PageKeeper's Application Toolbar, which enables users to open a scanned page directly in OmniPage Pro 9.0, providing a way for you to naturally track tour work. PageKeeper Standard is available separately for $39.00 (U.S. Price).
• Support for multifunction devices. Version 9.0 better handles multiple page documents from MFDs, like the HP OfficeJet. You can now load a multiple page document into the MFD document feeder and automatically scan all pages at once.
• Support of Windows® 98 Still Imaging architecture enables Windows® 98 users to use the Scan Button on compliant scanners (like the latest HP ScanJet models) to "push" documents into OmniPage Pro. OmniPage Pro supports Still Imaging Architecture as a destination application.
• Windows® 98 Support. OmniPage Pro adds Windows® 98 to its list of supported platforms. Other platforms supported by version 9.0 include Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0.