Oh dear. I was thinking I might upgrade, but now my plans are put on permanent
hold. I know that the K1000 program was still good in Version 12.04.
Please do report your dissatisfaction. The rest of us who use K1000 will
appreciate your input to the company very much!
Sandi
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Evan Reese
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2017 3:46 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] My New K1000 Broke Access to RTF Files from MS
Wordand Pac Mate
Hey Guys,
Well, I got the latest and greatest version of K1000, and I’m regreting it.
Sure, the recognition is better, although not miraculously better, and now
you only get one OCR engine instead of two. I knew that going in though, so I
guess I can’t really blame them for that. Still, I miss having a choice, even
if I use FineReader most of the time.
There are a couple other problems, such as no support for WIA drivers for my
OpbicBook 3900 scanner, and one other I’ll talk about below.
But the major problem I’m having is that I can no longer transfer files worked
on with MS Word or my Pac Mate. The latest K1000 reads the first page, then the
next page is completely blank, and there are no pages beyond that.
The issue with MS Word is minor for me, although annoying. I found out about
that one just a few days after I got my upgrade. The only reason I found out
about it so soon, (I “upgraded” on December 8), is because of another bug in
the latest K1000. I wanted to add a blank line to the tops of my pages. I know
it’s not necessary, I just like it that way. Well, when I performed the
keystrokes to add a blank line to the top of every page in K1000, it added a
blank line to the BOTTOM, yes, the bottom, of the page, not the top. Well, I
thought, annoying, but quickly solvable. I just brought the file into Word and
added the blank line at the top of each page with a quick search and replace
and it went just fine, until I brought it back into K1000 and couldn’t read
anything except the first page.
But the much bigger issue I only found out on Friday evening. Most of what I
scan is for other proofreaders, mainly Lissi, but I do quite a bit for other
people as well. But I’ve usually got something going for my own interest. In
those cases, I do my usual quality checks after scanning in K1000, then load
the book on my Pac Mate to read it in braille, something I generally enjoy very
much, fixing the inevitable scannos as I go. Then I bring it back into K1000
for a few more checks and a couple of modifications that are easier in K1000
than on my Pac Mate. I like to check to make sure the formatting is correct,
all the fonts are properly adjusted, and to put in any special characters I
need. There’s a way to do all that with the Pac Mate, (I think), but I know how
to do them in K1000, and it’s very easy. Well, I got quite a shock on Friday
evening when I brought my newly finished book into K1000and could only read the
first page of it, same as the file I saved in MS Word.
I’m wondering if anyone here noticed when they broke compatibility with rtf
files saved in Word. It’s not certain, but it seems reasonable to suppose that
compatibility with rtf files saved with a Pac Mate was broken at the same time.
So now I’m back with my old version 11.03. I had a version 11 CD, and I still
have the patch that brought me back up to 11.03 originally. Now my K1000 works
the way it has for several years, smoothly and familiarly, with compatibility
with rtf files saved with MS Word and my Pac Mate, and both OCR engines, (even
if they aren’t the very latest).
I now know I should have left well enough alone. It wasn’t broke and I
shouldn’t have “fixed it”".” I was exuberant with my new scanner and rashly
decided to “upgrade” my K1000 at the same time.
Turned out to be more of a downgrade from my perspective.
Unfortunately, it looks like their offices are closed until next year, so I
can’t talk to anyone up there, either about getting my money back, (not
likely), or to ask them about these bugs. I could write them something of
course, and perhaps I should; but I’m getting ready for a trip right now and it
would be quicker just to talk to someone up there.
Anyway, a lot of people like to rush to get the latest and (presumably)
greatest, but the old adage is worth remembering: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix
it. I’' had already waited quite a long time to get a new version, but
apparently I should have just let it alone.
On the other hand, I will have to get a new laptop eventually, either in 2018
or 2019, with Windows 10 on it, and it’s possible that this old K1000 may not
run on it. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. If that is the
case, I’ll have to hope they’ve fixed rtf compatibility by then, although we
may never get back to more than one OCR engine.
Evan
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