OmniPage Pro 11 (OP) from ScanSoft is the latest version of an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program that has been the long-time, standard, OCR software. Over the years, this software has become more user friendly and improved its capabilities to provide error-free text and page formats the current version, under most circumstances, works quickly and works well.

Quoted installation requires: Pentium, Win 95or better, 64MB RAM (recommended), and 75 MB hard-drive space (67.5 MB space on my hard drive). An additional patch to the boxed CD software was obtainable from the ScanSoft website, but the patch involved a fix for using a scanner's Automatic Document Feeder, which was of no interest to me. On the website the full version of OP sells for $500, the upgrade for $150.

Along with an extensive Help utility, OP comes with a 92-page User's Guide, which adequately covers software installation, operation, troubleshooting, and testing. The installation itself was straightforward except for the necessity of setting up my scanner, carefully done with the help of a 'Scanner Wizard'. It should be noted that the OP operation, from initial scanning to the final text-document output, involves an extensive set of functions, each of which is structured by a set of parameters particular to that function. Although each set is fixed by default values, it pays to go through all setups in 'Select Process Settings' at least once to ensure that OP is then tailored to one's own likes. For example, I set up the OP scanning operation to stop at my own, scanner-software, setup window. Thus, instead of scanning the entire scanner area on my scanner (by default), I could set optimum scanning parameters and crop out only a portion of the total image when desired. In scanning complex layouts, such control is advantageous.

Most people unfamiliar with OCR technology know that it's used on scanned documents and naturally think of it as simply performing the character recognition of text, numbers and symbols. After all it's called OCR. However, all major modern OCR software converts whole paper documents to computer editable formats. OP not only converts normal text but also converts headlines, columns, tables, headers and footers, retaining their formats. It captures color graphics, line drawings, and any type of photo. With help, it will provide highly accurate OCR on degraded or dirty documents. OP is able to process all the popular image files, tiff, ping, Adobe PDF files and save outputs to some 21 different file types including PDF. It also scans spreadsheets, supports over 100 languages and contains IntelleTrain, which automatically uses previous corrections to generate better OCR results.

I found the transfer of original-image layouts to the word processing program to be the major problem that OP has. Simple layouts, like those of letters with Letter Heads and headings presented no problems. But the "complex" image layouts received from OP by my MS Word Processor did not represent the original layouts. For example, a 3 column page from a magazine, containing 30 & 60 point headings, and 8 point text, came over with the headings awry; the 3 columns were separated but paragraphing was not acceptably spaced. Furthermore, font sizes were not appropriate for the MS-Word 3-column layout. It required a fair amount of manipulation in MS Word to reconstruct its page to merely resemble the original page formats.

However, in this case, it must be said that the OCR process was done automatically by just punching the 'Acquire Text' option in fold-down of the 'File' menu, a convenience added to word processors by OP. This activated OP, which then automatically generated a scan, processed the result in accordance with initial parameter setups, and transferred its output to MS Word. Perhaps with some special, manual, prior, setup and manipulation, OP would have produced a better OCR'd page. Some such manual 'Zoning' was tried, but more experience is needed to achieve better OCR'ing.

OP seems to have any adjustment needed to transfer a hard-copy document to its corresponding computer-editable document. But like all extensive software, it needs practice for one to become adept at its use.