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1993-01-27
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╓──────────────╖
║ TextPert 3.7 ║
║ Windows ║
╙──────────────╜
by Tony Curro
I will be reviewing several OCR packages in the coming months.
OCR is Optical Character Recognition. This is the process
that scanners use to recognize and convert image files to
text. Using a compatible scanner with this product will allow
you to create a text file as it is being scanned.
This process requires several steps. First you have the page
scanned, then mark areas you want to use, and finally have
the software recognize the text. This can be done
automatically. You can also do multiple pages at one time.
All the software I will be testing does require MS Windows.
TextPert is the smallest of these programs. It one
requires 1MB hard disk space.
Installation is fairly simple. You do run it directly from
Windows, by choosing the File, and then Run options from the
Program Manager. If you are using Windows 3.1 you will
see the opening screens in Greek. Just pressing RETURN will get
you past the first screen, which is basically telling you this.
The reason for this is that Microsoft changed the default font
from 3.0 to 3.1. One thing I did not like about the
installation program, is that it does NOT tell you
"Installation Complete," or a similar message. After you are
done, you just close the window. There is mention of this in
the manual. I still like to be told on screen that I am done.
TextPert will read text from most anything: magazines,
newspapers, books and so on. If you can have your scanner
scan it, chances are TextPert can read it. TextPert can
handle scanners from over 15 manufacturers. The scanner I
have, Complete PC Page Scanner, is one of the listed scanners.
However, I cannot get the program to see the scanner. I phoned
technical support and am still awaiting their call, which has
been over a week ago.
To compensate for this, and to test the product, I scanned
pages into TIF files. Then I started TextPert and made it read
from disk. It saw the file and did a decent job of
converting the TIF into a plain ASCII format. Several times
I had multiple pages of the same document, which TextPert
also handle nicely. Of course TextPert did not understand all
the text on the pages. Some of the text was small; some of it
very light, but it did do about 95% right.
They have both a U.S. and an International edition of TextPert.
They also make versions for Macintosh. The International
edition will recognize 34 Indo-European languages.
╓──────────────────────╖
║ Program Information ║
╟──────────────────────╢
║ TextPert 3.7 Windows ║
╟──────────────────────╢
║ List Price $495 ║
╟──────────────────────╢
║ CTA, Inc. ║
║ 25 Science Park ║
║ New Haven, CT 06511 ║
║ 203-786-5828 ║
║ 203-786-5833 (FAX) ║
╙──────────────────────╜