RE: JFW-friendly OCR
- From: "Marks, Jim" <Marks@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:24:43 -0700
Is Text Cloner Pro self-voicing?
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Clendinen [mailto:alanclendinen@xxxxxxxxxxx]
I recently obtained trial versions of three Optical Character =
Recognition
(OCR) programs, which are compatible with JFW. These programs are =
Freedom
Scientific's Openbook, Kurzweil's Kurzweil 1000, and Premier Assistive
Technology's Text Cloner Pro.
From my tests of these products, I have concluded that all three =
programs
did an adequate job with converting scanned books and other printed
materials, but Openbook and Kurzweil 1000 both carry a hefty retail =
price of
$995.00
Text Cloner Pro, however, retails for just $89.95. Now to be fair, I =
must
note that Openbook and Kurzweil 1000 include some nifty bells and =
whistles
that the bare-bones Text Cloner Pro doesn't have.
These more expensive OCR programs include built-in speech capability, so =
you
can use them without needing a separate screen-reader application. They =
can
also create MP3 files from scanned text. Both programs allow scanning of
graphics, which can then be saved in a variety of formats.
The Kurzweil 1000 includes a 30-day membership to bookshare.org, and =
also
features a utility for finding and downloading e-books from a few e-book =
web
sites.
The question you must ask yourself is, are the extra features worth an =
extra
$905.05? In my opinion, the answer is no. In fact, from my testing, I =
found
the built-in speech "feature" to be a real pain in the neck. It =
interfered
with JFW speech and numeric keypad controls. In Openbook, JFW needed =
to
either be unloaded or put to sleep. The Kurzweil 1000 has a =
configuration
setting to use JFW's speech and numeric keypad control, but it was =
buggy.
The built-in speech feature of these two programs is an unnecessary =
frill if
you already have a screen-reader program.
The installation and configuring for Text Cloner Pro was by far the =
easiest
of the three programs. Once it was set up, scanning and OCR conversion =
is
accomplished with a single keystroke.
If you are looking for a user-friendly, JFW compatible OCR program that =
is
inexpensive, Text Cloner Pro is a great choice.
You can learn more about Text Cloner Pro by visiting their web page at:
http://www.premier-programming.com/TextCloner/tcpro.htm
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