OmniPage Pro 12.0 Office review: OmniPage Pro 12.0 Office

The twelfth version of ScanSoft OmniPage Pro Office shows the competition just who's boss. Other optical character recognition (OCR) programs, such as Abbyy FineReader 6.0, can't quite keep up with OmniPage's simplicity and power. OmniPage can easily retain complex page layouts, for example, where other OCR apps can't. What's more, OmniPage Pro is designed to help you publish converted information to paper, electronic files, or even the Web. The program reads and writes PDF files and a long list of other formats, and it contains powerful network features that let you share scanners and install the program from a server. It's arguably the best OCR package available today, well suited to small and large businesses alike. If your budget can't spare $600, however, consider the slightly less accurate and much less expensive Abbyy FineReader 6.0. The twelfth version of ScanSoft OmniPage Pro Office shows the competition just who's boss. Other optical character recognition (OCR) programs, such as Abbyy FineReader 6.0, can't quite keep up with OmniPage's simplicity and power. OmniPage can easily retain complex page layouts, for example, where other OCR apps can't. What's more, OmniPage Pro is designed to help you publish converted information to paper, electronic files, or even the Web. The program reads and writes PDF files and a long list of other formats, and it contains powerful network features that let you share scanners and install the program from a server. It's arguably the best OCR package available today, well suited to small and large businesses alike. If your budget can't spare $600, however, consider the slightly less accurate and much less expensive Abbyy FineReader 6.0.

Setup is smooth sailing
Once you begin the OmniPage installation, you'll have the program ready to run in a matter of minutes. If you purchased the downloadable version, launch the install program; otherwise, just pop in the CD and you're almost done. You must enter a serial number, but OmniPage doesn't entangle you in an awkward registration or verification processes. Once you start the program, you can let a setup wizard guide you through the steps of preparing a conversion job or use the toolbar to do it yourself. Then you can either control each individual step manually or choose the large 1-2-3 button (located above the main panes) to automate the process.

The paper chase
Version 12's clutter-free main screen displays three vertical windows, with a fourth minimized at the bottom. The panel to the left (located within a larger window called the Image Panel) displays thumbnails of pages you've scanned so that you can easily access them at will. Also in the Image Panel, the middle window divides the page currently being analyzed into separate zones for different types of OCR analysis: text, graphics, or tables. For your convenience, the right-hand window (the Text Editor) displays the post-OCR page so that you can proofread it. You can also view it with or without formatting by clicking one of three buttons: True Page View, Retain Fonts And Paragraph View, and No Formatting View.

By default, the Document Manager window sits minimized at the bottom of the screen. Enlarged, it displays details about the pages you're scanning, such as the page name, the number of characters, and the number of suspect words. After the OCR process, OmniPage proofreads your document, then another window opens on top of the rest, showing words that are questionable or not found in the program's dictionary, suggested replacements, and a magnified view of the scanned image so that you can see what the original looked like. Also--this is really cool--OmniPage's computerized voices can read a scanned document back to you so that you can identify incorrect words by ear.

As in the past, OmniPage Pro 12 works with any scanner or camera that has a TWAIN driver (most such devices do). If your scanner has an automatic document feeder, you can set OmniPage to scan multipage documents. Even better, in addition to scanned images and PDF files, OmniPage runs OCR on files saved in most graphics formats (including TIF, BMP, PCX, DCX, JPG, GIF, and XIF) and saves scanned pages as RTF and Adobe Acrobat files, as well as in various word-processor and even eBook formats.

Scandalous behavior
During our rigorous scanning tests, OmniPage Pro 12 Office aced table-data translations, not only nailing the content but also reproducing the correct fonts and formatting. With long stretches of text, it made remarkably few recognition errors--far fewer than Abbyy FineReader. But OmniPage Pro occasionally botched text formatting. For example, in a few instances, OmniPage accidentally italicized the letter or word following an italicized word. And OmniPage translated an all-bold sentence erratically: some words in bold, others plain. At times, even point sizes or fonts in the scanned version differed from those of the original.

Business should take note of OmniPage Pro's network capabilities. For example, you can set OmniPage to work with networked scanners, and the program's multiuser licensing lets administrators install it across a local network to any or all connected computers. Whether you run OmniPage Pro on one ore many single computers, you'll appreciate the scheduler utility that lets you set recognition jobs to execute at a later time, such as overnight. Since OCR programs are processing-intensive, running them overnight will let you work in other programs during the day, without compromising speed and performance.

You'll never scan alone
If OmniPage Pro 12 gives you trouble, don't worry. ScanSoft provides a clearly written and well-illustrated manual with thorough explanations of OmniPage's features and an extensive troubleshooting section. The company's Web site contains extensive support materials, and you can contact technical support by e-mail and phone from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. You get one free (but not toll-free) technical call, but any subsequent calls related to problems solved in the manual or online will cost you $19.95. The direct phone support is expensive, but ScanSoft's free resources should provide most users with answers.

Taking care of business
Although homebodies can certainly take advantage of OmniPage Pro 12 Office's power, you won't get your money's worth if you don't regularly need to scan and convert documents. On the other hand, businesses of all sizes will find this program indispensible. At $599.99 (direct), the app itself is expensive, but few will pay that price. The competitive upgrade cost is $199.99, and almost anyone with a scanner will qualify for this since most come with a starter version of some OCR package. Compared to the $150 Abbyy FineReady, OmniPage costs a bit more, but its quality performance and versatile features easily offset the price difference.