[bksvol-discuss] ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Redefines OCR Accuracy and Performance

juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx · Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:29:19 -0400 (EDT)

Just passing this on.

Arrivenet (Press Releases)
Monday, August 29, 2005

ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Redefines OCR Accuracy and Performance

Intelligent Product Enhancements Deliver Increased Accuracy, Digital Camera
Support, Improved PDF Conversion, High-Quality Image Output, and Task
Automation to Expand Usage Options for Customers

FREMONT, CA -- (Market Wire - Aug 29, 2005) --  ABBYY Software House today
announced the commercial release of the next generation of its FineReader
desktop optical character recognition (OCR) and document conversion software
application, FineReader 8.0.

ABBYY FineReader 8.0 is a powerful, yet easy-to-use software application for
professional quality conversion of document images and PDF files into
editable and searchable electronic files. The product delivers outstanding
accuracy when converting a variety of document types including tables and
spreadsheets, magazine articles, contracts, and even faxes. Enhancements in
version 8.0 give FineReader new intelligence, making it more accurate,
flexible, and adaptable for a wider variety of users than ever before.

ABBYY FineReader 8.0 redefines OCR accuracy and performance by delivering:

--  a significant increase in overall recognition accuracy - with up to 30
    percent accuracy improvement for "difficult-to-read" images such as
faxes
    and documents scanned at low resolution and new digital camera support

--  more intelligent PDF conversion - with smarter, faster processing and
    output to searchable, secure, and Tagged PDF files

--  higher productivity - through new automation tools and fast processing
    options; and "instant" OCR with a new ScreenShot Reader bonus
application

Alexander Bobrovskiy, Chief Product Manager for the ABBYY FineReader Product
Line, explained that as OCR technologies become more sophisticated, the
measurement of product performance moves beyond simple word accuracy
improvements. "Business documents are becoming increasingly complex, with a
variety of inherent information needing to be pulled from them (such as
hyperlinks, web references and e-mail addresses). In turn, FineReader is
evolving and becoming more intelligent and versatile to make it easier to
extract necessary data from images, and make such information more
meaningful to the user in the process."

Intelligent Recognition Enhancements

FineReader's intelligent approach selectively deploys the best combination
of recognition algorithms and pre-processing adjustments based on the
quality and key attributes of each document. The result is greater overall
accuracy. New document conversion benefits from FineReader 8.0 recognition
enhancements include:

--  Adaptive Recognition for Camera Images. The new version of FineReader
    is equipped to differentiate between document images captured from
digital
    cameras or scanners. It applies different processing algorithms,
depending
    on the source input device, to address problems typically associated
with
    digital camera images such as poor lighting, out-of-focus text,
distorted
    text lines, and missing resolution information. New image pre-processing
    functions for straightening text lines further help correct camera lens
    distortions. As a result, FineReader users now have the ability to
process
    documents that have typically been difficult to capture, such as
documents
    found while travelling out of the office (and without a scanner), text
from
    signs or walls, or pages from a thick book.

--  Hyperlink Support. Showing greater knowledge of how text and text
    formatting works, FineReader is now able to "read" and "reproduce"
    hyperlinks. Text starting with http://, ftp://, file://, or mailto://
are
    now recognised by FineReader as "hyperlinks" and reproduced as live
links
    when sent to Microsoft Word, PDF, and HTML.

--  Multilingual OCR.  FineReader supports 179 languages, more than any
    other document conversion application.

Smarter, Faster PDF Conversion

FineReader 8.0 offers three different PDF conversion functions in one
application: users can open a PDF file and convert it into editable formats
(such as Word or Excel); open a PDF file, modify text, then save back to
PDF; or create searchable PDFs from paper documents. FineReader 8.0
increases PDF conversion speed by up to two times over the previous version
and features the following technological enhancements:

--  Intelligent PDF conversion process. FineReader delivers superior
    accuracy in PDF file conversion with its dual-option approach. When
    processing PDF files, FineReader determines whether or not text is
    embedded, examines the integrity of the text layer and makes a decision
as
    to whether to extract the text or apply OCR. It exams each block
    individually, and selects the most appropriate method to apply to each
    block. This process ensures more accurate and faster PDF conversion even
    when processing problematic PDF files such as PDFs with incorrectly
encoded
    blocks of "text" or PDFs presented as image-only files with no text
layer
    (i.e. images from MFPs). If necessary, advanced users can select
'Recognise
    PDF as Image' Mode to process all PDF documents as images.

--  PDF Security setting and encryption support. FineReader 8.0 supports
    the following PDF security settings, making it well-suited for
    professionals working in government entities and other organizations
    demanding high security:

        o Supports open and permission passwords,

        o Allows users to restrict printing, editing, or extracting of file
          content

        o Supports RC4-based 40-bit, 128-bit, and AES (Advanced Encryption
          Standard)-based 128-bit encryption.

--  Links and document properties. When converting PDF files, FineReader
    will recreate internal links and hyperlinks within the PDF file. It also
    captures PDF document properties defined by the author such as: subject,
    author, title, and keywords and transfer that information to a similar
    location in the output documents in DOC, RTF, XLS, HTML, PDF, and LIT
    formats.

--  PDF output in Tagged PDF format. FineReader now supports output to
    Tagged PDF formats that can be "reflowed" to fit different page or
screen
    widths. This makes it easy to send recognized text to handheld devices
such
    as PDAs or screen readers typically used by visually impaired users.

New Productivity Features:

--  Task Automation. A new Automation Manager allows users to perform the
    multiple steps of document or PDF conversion with simple "one-click"
    execution.  Easy-to-follow FineReader drop-down menus are already
equipped
    with pre-defined tasks; users simply select one of the options and the
    program performs all of the steps in the process automatically.
    Alternatively, users can also create their own processes with the help
of
    an Automation Wizard. The Automation Manager is ideal for regularly
    repeated conversion tasks:  with one click, the Automation Manager could
    perform recognition and save the results to two different formats (such
as
    Word and PDF) at the same time saving the effort required to manually
    export a file twice.  Ready-to-use automated tasks can also be
distributed
    among many company employees.

--  ABBYY Screenshot Reader (Bonus Application). FineReader 8.0 offers a
    new application called ABBYY Screenshot Reader. Screenshot Reader is an
    easy-to-use utility that captures screen images and allows users to
perform
    "instant" OCR from the screen. It is ideal for pulling text, tables, or
    images from Web browser pages, Flash presentations, Windows Explorer
file
    menus, or error messages. Screenshot Reader is also an ideal "quick OCR"
    tool for users who want to pull small quotes or a few sentences of text
    from a PDF or image file they are currently viewing. Users can choose
from
    capturing an image only, text, or table. The data can be immediately
    transferred to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or a clipboard, or saved
to
    a file.

--  Fast Mode Recognition. FineReader 8.0 now offers a "fast mode
    recognition" option which increases speed by up 2.5 times when full
    analysis and processing is not necessary.  Ideal when processing large
    batches of documents in which extracted text is used only for indexing
    (searchable archives), or large groups of high quality documents.

--  New Output/Saving Options.  Additional new saving options include the
    .LIT format for eBooks and increased user-selected options when saving
to
    files.  For example, users can now automatically set all pages of a
    multipage document to a specified size. Additionally, document
properties
    or "meta data" can be added to an output file when saving to DOC, XML,
    HTML, PDF and LIT formats, providing useful information for automation
of
    indexing, search, and data mining.

New Parameters for Saving Pictures

ABBYY FineReader 8.0 features new options for saving pictures in output
documents. Users can now set color depth for pictures -- color, grey, or
black and white. For example, if there are many color pictures in a
document, users can save all pictures as grey or black and white, which
reduces output file size significantly. New options have been added for
saving results in PDF, HTML and PPT formats. When saving to PDF users can
select format compression. And when saving to HTML and PPT users can choose
between compression formats. A user may also adjust color depth and picture
quality for all pages of a document or control the parameters of individual
pictures.

New Packages for Corporate and Volume Licence Customers

FineReader Desktop Products are available in different versions based on
user and usage type. FineReader Professional Edition, the core product,
offers professional OCR for individual users. The offerings for multiple
users in networked office environments have been enhanced for version 8.0
and are offered in the following packages:

FineReader 8.0 Corporate Edition - For small-to-mid-sized businesses working
on a local area network (LAN), ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Corporate Edition is an
ideal groupware solution for OCR and PDF conversion. Corporate Edition users
benefit from the ability to support multiple users who can work together
while processing their documents. Benefits of Corporate Edition include:

--  Network installation

--  Support for network scanning devices

--  Distributed document processing

--  Shared dictionary work

--  Concurrent license management, in which the license limitation is
    based on the amount of simultaneous users at one time.

--  Use the command line to automatically process images and PDF files

FineReader 8.0 Corporate Edition offers a new enhanced Hot Folder &
Scheduling application with functions for automatic processing of images and
automatic batch conversion. Ideal for companies working with networked
scanners, digital copiers or MFPs, or fax servers, the Hot Folder &
Scheduling feature allows users to create designated folders located on a
local drive, network drive, or FTP server to be monitored by FineReader.
Each time a document or multiple documents are added to these folders, they
are immediately processed in the background by FineReader according to
pre-defined rules specified by the users. With a new Wizard, users or
administrators can simply follow the dialogs to set up tasks by first
selecting location of the folder, start time (for single processing or
constantly watching), recognition language and type (fast mode or regular),
output/saving formats, and output/saving location. This can be used to save
valuable work time, for example, by scheduling the processing of a large
batch at the end of the work day.

FineReader 8.0 Site Licence Edition - FineReader 8.0 Site Licence Edition
offers all of the core features of FineReader 8.0 Corporate Edition with
added support for a high volume, automated roll-out among multiple
workstations across a large enterprise.

Availability and Pricing

ABBYY FineReader Desktop Products including Professional Edition and
Corporate Edition will be available starting in September through select
retail outlets and resellers worldwide. ABBYY FineReader Site License
Edition will be available later in the fall through special license
agreement.

For information on pricing in your region, please contact your local ABBYY
office or distributor. A list of FineReader distribution partners can be
found on the ABBYY corporate web site at www.abbyy.com/resellers.

About ABBYY

ABBYY (ABBYY Software House) develops linguistic and Artificial Intelligence
(AI) software providing a full line of OCR and text-processing programs and
solutions. ABBYY's products include: FineReader OCR systems -- a family of
end user programs and development tools for recognition of printed texts,
tables and forms; FormReader -- an ICR program for recognition and
processing of hand-printed forms; and ABBYY Retrieval & Morphology Engine --
a set of developer's tools for integration of full-text search and
linguistic capabilities into external applications. Companies that license
ABBYY recognition technologies include Siemens Nixdorf, Samsung Electronics,
C-Technologies, Sumitomo Electric Systems, Banctec, BenQ, Documentum, EPSON,
Freedom Scientific, Hewlett-Packard, Kurzweil, Kofax, Microtek, NewSoft,
Notable Solutions, Panasonic, Stellent, Toshiba, Verity, Neurascript,
Saperion, and SWT. ABBYY Group Headquarters are located in Moscow with
offices in Ukraine (ABBYY Ukraine), the USA (ABBYY USA, Fremont, CA), the UK
(ABBYY UK, Bishops Stortford, England), and Germany (ABBYY Europe, Munich).

For more information about ABBYY, please visit the company's website at
www.ABBYY.com.

ABBYY and FineReader names and logos are registered trademarks of ABBYY
Software Ltd. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby
recognized.

Contact:
Imelda Valenzuela
510-226-6717
imeldav@xxxxxxxxxxxx

http://press.arrivenet.com/tec/article.php/686308.html

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