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LEGAL N O T I C E S Copyright © 2005 ScanSoft, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted, transcribed, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, or otherwise, without prior written consent from ScanSoft, Inc., 1 Wayside Road, Burlington, Massachusetts 01803-4609. Printed in the United States of America and in Ireland. The software described in this book is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. IM P O R T A N T NOTICE ScanSoft, Inc. provides this publication "As Is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Some states or jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties in certain transactions; therefore, this statement may not apply to you. ScanSoft reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes from time to time in the content hereof without obligation of ScanSoft to notify any person of such revision or changes. TR A D E M A R K S A N D CREDI T S ScanSoft, OmniPage, PaperPort, True Page, Direct OCR, Logical Form Recognition, RealSpeak and ASR-1600 are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc., in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the trademarks of their respective holders. T H I R D P A R T Y LI C E N S E S / NOTICES Please see acknowledgements/notices at the end of this guide. ScanSoft, Inc. 1 Wayside Road Burlington, MA 01803-4609 U.S.A. ScanSoft Belgium BVBA Guldensporenpark 32 BE-9820 Merelbeke Belgium C ONTENTS 5 7 New features in OmniPage 15 WE L C O M E IN S T A L L A T I O N AND SETUP 9 9 10 11 13 14 15 15 16 System requirements Installing OmniPage Setting up your scanner with OmniPage How to start the program Registering your software Activating OmniPage Uninstalling the software How to use OmniPage with PaperPort US I N G O M N I P A G E OmniPage Documents The OmniPage Desktop Basic Processing Steps 17 17 18 19 PR O C E S S I N G DOCUMENTS 21 21 23 25 25 26 28 29 31 32 33 35 37 37 38 Quick Start Guide Processing methods Manual processing Processing with workflows Processing from other applications Processing with the Batch Manager Defining the source of page images Document to document conversion Describing the layout of the document Preprocessing Images Image Enhancement Tools Using Image Enhancement History Saving and applying templates Image Enhancement in Workflows OmniPage 15 User's Guide 3 Zones and backgrounds Table grids in the image Using zone templates 38 42 42 PR O O F I N G AND EDITING 45 45 46 47 48 49 50 50 52 54 55 56 The editor display and views Proofreading OCR results Verifying text The Character Map User dictionaries Languages Training Text and image editing On-the-fly editing Reading text aloud Working with Forms SA V I N G AND EXPORTING Saving and Exporting Saving original images Saving recognition results Sending pages by mail Other export targets 59 59 60 61 65 65 WO R K F L O W S Workflow Assistant Batch Manager Creating new jobs Watched folders Watched mailboxes Barcode processing Voice recognition 67 69 73 74 78 79 80 81 TE C H N I C A L IN D E X 4 INFORMATION 83 83 Troubleshooting 89 Contents Welcome Welcome to this OmniPage® 15 text recognition program, and thank you for choosing our software! The following documentation has been provided to help you get started and give you an overview of the program. This User's Guide This guide introduces you to using OmniPage 15. It includes installation and setup instructions, a description of the program's commands and working areas, task-oriented instructions, ways to customize and control processing, and technical information. This guide is written with the assumption that you know how to work in the Microsoft Windows environment. Please refer to your Windows documentation if you have questions about how to use dialog boxes, menu commands, scroll bars, drag and drop functionality, shortcut menus, and so on. We also assume you are familiar with your scanner and its supporting software, and that the scanner is installed and working correctly before it is setup with OmniPage 15. Please refer to the scanner's own documentation as necessary. Online Help OmniPage online Help contains information on features, settings, and procedures. It also has a comprehensive glossary, with its own alphabetical index and a table of contents. The online Help is provided as HTML help, and has been designed for quick and easy information retrieval. Online Help is available after you install OmniPage. Press F1 as you are working with the program to see an online help topic relating to the current screen area, dialog box or warning message. Welcome 5 Comprehensive context-sensitive help aims to provide just enough assistance to let you keep working without delay. You can access the context-sensitive help in the following ways: Click the Help tool in the Standard toolbar to get the help cursor. Click with this on any item on the desktop outside a dialog box or warning message. Press Shift + F1 to get the same help cursor. Use Shift + F1 to get contextsensitive help for shortcut menu items. Click the question mark button in the upper right corner of a dialog box and then click an item in the dialog box to see the popup window. Some dialog boxes or warning messages have their own Help button, or a help text. Click the button or the text to get information on the dialog or message box. Click anywhere to remove a context-sensitive popup Help window. Readme File The Readme file contains last-minute information about the software. Please read it before using OmniPage. To open this HTML file, choose Readme in the OmniPage Installer or afterwards in the Help menu. Scanning and other information The ScanSoft® web site at www.scansoft.com provides timely information on the program. The Scanner Guide (http://www.scansoft.com/scannerguide/) contains up-dated information about supported scanners and related issues; ScanSoft tests the 25 most widely used scanner models. Access ScanSoft's web site from the OmniPage 15 Installer or afterwards from the Help menu. Tech Notes The web site at www.scansoft.com contains Tech Notes on commonly reported issues using OmniPage 15. Web pages may also offer assistance on the installation process and troubleshooting. 6 Welcome New features in OmniPage 15 Here are some main areas of innovation compared to OmniPage Pro 14. If you are upgrading, you may not need to consult this guide very much. Extended PDF support up to version 1.5. Batch Manager redesign giving precise schematic information for each job occurrence. See page 28. Workflow viewer enhancements make it easier to handle regular tasks. See page 77. Image Enhancement tools to optimize page images for OCR or other re-use. See page 35. Suspect word and character display clearer and more precise. See page 45. Ribbon Character map for easy insertion of non-keyboard characters. See page 48. Folder and sub-folder input for specified file types when loading files. OCR speed and accuracy improvements, better zoning and format retention. More new features appear in the list below. Features unique to OmniPage Professional 15 OmniPage 15 has a Professional version for office environments. The list below shows features offered only in OmniPage Professional 15. New features are denoted with a starburst. Form recognition and handling. See page 56. Better Workflow/Job distinction, with more choice for job type and easier input of timing information. See page 67. Document to Document conversion to and from a wide range of formats. See page 31. New features in OmniPage 15 7 Mailbox watching in Workflows and Batch Manager. See page 79. Convert to PDF step in Batch Manager, using PDF Create! for direct conversion inside jobs. ISIS high-volume scanner driver support. Folder watching (smart folders) to auto-process incoming files. Support for sub-folders is new. See page 78. Barcode cover pages (scanned or from file) for workflow launching. Voice commands for quick workflow launching and proofing suggestions. Integrated programs PDF Converter 3 and Create! 3 to unlock and create PDF files. Supports tagged, signed, encrypted PDF files, and much more. See their own documentation. SharePoint, FTP site and ODMA support. See page 29. New and streamlined support for SharePoint 2003. A more complete list of features and differences appears in online Help. This icon is used throughout the guide to denote features that are available only in OmniPage Professional 15. OmniPage 15 is supplied in Enterprise versions for network use. It is also supplied in Special Editions for selected scanner manufacturers and other resellers. The feature set in these editions may vary, in line with each vendor's requirements. 8 Welcome Installation and setup This chapter provides information on installing and starting OmniPage. System requirements The minimum requirements to install and run OmniPage 15 are: A computer with an Intel® Pentium® III processor or equivalent Microsoft® Windows® 98 (from second edition), Windows Me, Windows 2000 (from Service Pack 4), Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 128MB of memory (RAM), 256MB recommended 200MB of free hard disk space for application and sample files plus 60-65MB working space during installation. Additionally: 20-67MB per RealSpeakTM module (343MB for 9 languages) 2MB per ASR speech recognition language (15MB for 7 languages) * 83MB for ScanSoft PDF Converter * 16MB for ScanSoft PDF Create! * 5MB for Microsoft Installer (MSI) if not present (it is included in most Windows operating systems) Up to 5MB for system updates 800x600 pixel color monitor with 16-bit color or greater video card A CD-ROM drive for installation A Windows compatible pointing device Installation and setup 9 A compatible scanner with its own scanner driver software, if you plan to scan documents. See the Scanner Guide at ScanSoft's web site (www.scansoft.com) for a list of supported scanners Web access is needed for product registration, Scanner Wizard database updating and obtaining live updates for the program. * Supplied with OmniPage Professional 15 only. Installing OmniPage OmniPage 15's installation program takes you through installation with instructions on every screen. Before installing OmniPage: Close all other applications, especially anti-virus programs. Log into your computer with administrator privileges if you are installing on Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003. If you own a previous version of OmniPage, or if you are upgrading from demonstration software or an OmniPage Special Edition, the installer asks your consent to uninstall that product. To install OmniPage: 1. Insert the OmniPage CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive. The installation program should start automatically. If it does not start, locate your CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer and double-click the Autorun.exe program at the top-level of the CD-ROM. 2. Choose a language to use during installation. Accept the End-User License Agreement and enter the serial number shown on the CD envelope. 10 Chapter 1 3. Choose a complete or a custom installation. A complete installation installs all RealSpeakTM Text-to-Speech language modules (currently 9). In OmniPage Professional 15, up to 7 ASR-1600TM Speech Recognition modules are installed. Custom installation lets you exclude or add modules. To exclude a module, click its down arrow and select `This feature will be installed when required'. 4. Follow the instructions on each screen to install the software. All files needed for scanning are copied automatically during installation. Setting up your scanner with OmniPage All files needed for scanner setup and support are copied automatically during the program's installation, but no scanner setup occurs at installation time. Before using OmniPage 15 for scanning, your scanner should be installed with its own scanner driver software and tested for correct functionality. Scanner driver software is not included with OmniPage. Scanner setup is done through the Scanner Setup Wizard. You can start this yourself, as described below. Otherwise, it appears when you first attempt to perform scanning. Proceed as follows: Choose Start All Programs ScanSoft OmniPage 15.0 Scanner Setup Wizard or click the Setup button in the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box. or choose Scan in the Get Page drop-down list in the OmniPage Toolbox and click the Get Page button. The Scanner Setup Wizard starts. If you have a web connection, the first panel invites you to update the scanner database supplied with the wizard. Choose Yes or No and click on Next. Setting up your scanner with OmniPage 11 Choose `Select and test scanner or digital camera', then click Next. If you have a single installed scanner, it appears, along with any scanners previously set up with OmniPage. If the required scanner is not listed, click Add Scanner... . You see a list of all detected scanner drivers in the checkmarked categories. This can include network devices. Select one and click OK. To install a second device, you must run the Scanner Wizard again. The wizard reports whether the chosen scanner model already has settings in the scanner database. If it does, you do not need to test it. If it does not, you should test it. Click on Next. If you chose not to test, click Finish. If you chose testing, click Next to have the scanner connection tested. If the connection is in order, you see a menu of further tests. Choose which testing steps you want to run. The Basic test scan is recommended. By default OmniPage uses its own scanning interface, located in the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box. If you want to use your scanner's own interface instead, choose Advanced settings... and select this. Click Hint editor... and choose Edit hints... only if you are experienced in configuring scanners or have been advised by Technical Support to do so. Click Next to start the tests. For the Basic scan test, insert a test page into your scanner. The wizard will scan using your scanner manufacturer's software. Click on Next. Your scanner's native user-interface will appear. Click on Scan to begin the sample scan. If necessary, click on Missing Image... or Improper Orientation... and make the appropriate selections. Once the image appears correctly in the window, click on Next. Move through the remaining requested tests, following the instructions on the screen. When all the requested tests have been completed successfully, the Scanner Wizard reports and invites you to click on Finish. You have successfully configured your scanner to work with OmniPage 15! 12 Chapter 1 To change the scanner settings at a later time, or to setup or remove a scanner, reopen the Scanner Setup Wizard from the Windows Start menu or from the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box. To test and repair an improperly functioning scanner, open the wizard and select `Test the current scanner or digital camera' in the second panel, then work through the procedure described above, maybe using advice received from Technical Support. To specify a different default scanner, open the wizard to reach the list of setup scanners. Move the highlight to the desired scanner and be sure to close the wizard with Finish. To get updated settings for your current scanner, open the wizard, request a fresh database download in the first screen, then choose `Use current settings with current device', click Next and then Finish. How to start the program To start OmniPage 15 do one of the following: Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose All Programs ScanSoft OmniPage 15.0 OmniPage [Professional] 15.0. Double-click the OmniPage icon in the program's installation folder or on the Windows desktop if placed there. Double-click an OmniPage Document (OPD) icon or file name; the clicked document is loaded into the program. See "OmniPage Documents" on page 17. Right click one or more image file icons or file names for a shortcut menu. Select Open With... OmniPage application. The images are loaded into the program. On opening, OmniPage's title screen is displayed and then its desktop. See "The OmniPage Desktop" on page 18. It provides an introduction to the program's main working areas. How to start the program 13 There are several ways of running the program with a limited interface: Use the Batch Manager program. Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose All Programs ScanSoft OmniPage 15.0 OmniPage Batch Manager. See page 28. Click Acquire Text from the File menu of an application registered with the Direct OCRTM facility. See "How to set up Direct OCR" on page 26. Right-click on one or more image file icons or file names for a shortcut menu. Select OmniPage 15 and choose a target format or a workflow from its sub-menu. The files will be processed according to the workflow instructions. See "Workflows" on page 67. Click the OmniPage Agent icon on the taskbar. Choose a workflow to start the program and run the workflow. In OmniPage Professional 15, voice selection of workflow is possible. Use OmniPage 15 with ScanSoft's PaperPort® document management product, to add OCR services. See "How to use OmniPage with PaperPort" on page 16. Registering your software ScanSoft's online registration runs at the end of installation. Please ensure web access is available. We provide an easy electronic form that can be completed in less than five minutes. When the form is filled, click Submit. If you did not register the software during installation, you will be periodically invited to register later. You can go to www.scansoft.com to register online. Click on Support and from the main support screen choose Register in the left-hand column. For a statement on the use of your registration data, please see ScanSoft's Privacy Policy. 14 Chapter 1 Activating OmniPage You will be invited to activate the product at the end of installation. Please ensure that web access is available. Provided your serial number is found at its storage location and has been correctly entered, no user interaction is required and no personal information is transmitted. If you do not activate the product at installation time, you will be invited to do this each time you invoke the program. OmniPage 15 can be launched only five times without activation. We recommend Automatic Activation. Uninstalling the software Sometimes uninstalling and then reinstalling OmniPage will solve a problem. The OmniPage Uninstall program will not remove files containing recognition results or any of the following user-created files: Zone templates (*.zon) Training files (*.otn) User dictionaries (*.ud) OmniPage Documents (*.opd) Job files (*.opj) Workflow files (*.xwf) To uninstall from Windows 2000, XP or Windows Server 2003 you must be logged into your computer with administrator privileges. To uninstall or reinstall OmniPage: Close OmniPage. Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose the Control Panel and then Add/Remove Programs. Select OmniPage and click Remove. Click Yes in the dialog box that appears to confirm removal. Select Yes to restart your computer immediately, or No if you plan to restart later. Activating OmniPage 15 Follow instructions until the process is finished. When you uninstall OmniPage, the link to your scanner is also uninstalled. You must setup your scanner again with OmniPage if you reinstall the program. All RealSpeak and ASR modules and the that were installed with the program will also be uninstalled. ScanSoft PDF Create! 3 and ScanSoft PDF Converter 3 need to be uninstalled separately. How to use OmniPage with PaperPort The PaperPort® program is a paper management software product from ScanSoft. It lets you link pages with suitable applications. Pages can contain pictures, text or both. If PaperPort exists on a computer with OmniPage, its OCR services become available and amplify the power of PaperPort. You can choose an OCR program by right-clicking on a text applications's PaperPort link, selecting Preferences and then selecting OmniPage 15 as the OCR package. OCR settings can be specified, as with Direct OCR. PaperPort provides the easiest way to turn paper into organized digital documents that everybody in an office can quickly find and use. PaperPort works with scanners, multifunction printers, and networked digital copiers to turn paper documents into digital documents. It then helps you to manage them along with all other electronic documents in one convenient and easy-to-use filing system. PaperPort's large, clear item thumbnails allow you to visually organize, retrieve and use your scanned documents, including Word files, spreadsheets, PDF files and even digital photos. PaperPort's Scanner Enhancement Technology tools ensure that scanned documents will look great while the annotation tools let you add notes and highlights to any scanned image. 16 Chapter 1 Using OmniPage OmniPage 15 uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to transform text from scanned pages or image files into editable text for use in your favorite computer applications. In addition to text recognition, OmniPage can retain the following elements and attributes of a document through the OCR process. Graphics (photos, logos) Form elements (checkboxes, radio buttons, text fields) Text formatting (character and paragraph) Page formatting (column structures, table formats, headings, placing of graphics). Documents in OmniPage A document in OmniPage consists of one image for each document page. After you perform OCR, the document will also contain recognized text, displayed in the Text Editor, possibly along with graphics, tables and form elements. OmniPage Documents An OmniPage Document (.opd) contains the original page images (optionally pre-processed) with any zones placed on them. After recognition, the OPD also contains the recognition results. When saving, you have two file type choices: OmniPage Document or OmniPage Document (Extended). The latter allows you to embed a user dictionary, training file or zone template file in the OPD. This can increase file size considerably but makes the OPD more portable. Using OmniPage 17 When you open an OmniPage Document, its settings are applied, replacing those existing in the program. The OmniPage Desktop The OmniPage Desktop has three main working areas, separated by splitters: the Document Manager, the Image Panel and the Text Editor. The Image Panel has an Image toolbar and the Text Editor has a Formatting toolbar. OmniPage Toolbox Standard Toolbar Formatting toolbar Image toolbar Document Manager Image Panel Text Editor OmniPage toolbox: This Toolbox lets you drive the processing. Document Manager: This provides an overview of your document with a table. Each row represents one page. Columns present statistical or status information for each page, and (where appropriate) document totals. 18 Chapter 2 Image Panel: This is displaying the image of the current page, together with its zones. The image panel can display the current page, thumbnails, or both. When this displays the current page image, the Image toolbar is available. Text Editor: This is displaying the recognition results from the current page. The illustration shows True Page view. The Toolbars The program has five main toolbars. Use the View menu to show, hide or customize them. The status bar at the bottom edge of the OmniPage program window explains the purpose of all tools. Standard toolbar: Performs basic functions. Image toolbar: Performs image, zoning and table operations. Formatting toolbar: Formats recognized text in the Text Editor. Verifier toolbar: Controls the location and appearance of the verifier. Reorder toolbar: Modifies the order of elements in recognized pages. Form Drawing toolbar: Creates new form elements. Form Arrangement toolbar: Arranges and aligns form elements. The Form toolbars appear only in OmniPage Professional 15. Basic Processing Steps There are three ways of handling documents: with automatic, manual or workflow processing. The basic steps for all processing methods are broadly the same: 1. Bring a set of images into OmniPage. You can scan a paper document with or without an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) or load one or more image files. Basic Processing Steps 19 2. Perform OCR to generate editable text. After OCR, you can check and correct errors in the document using the OCR Proofreader and edit the document in the Text Editor. 3. Export the document to the desired location. You can save your document to a specified file name and type, place it on the Clipboard, send it as a mail attachment or publish it. You can save the same document repeatedly to different destinations, different file types, with different settings and levels of formatting. Using OmniPage, you can choose from the following processing methods: Automatic, Manual, Combined, or Workflow. You can start recognition from other applications, using the Direct OCR feature of OmniPage; and can also schedule processing to run at a later time. Processing methods are detailed in the next chapter and in Online Help. Settings The Options dialog box is the central location for OmniPage settings. Access it from the Standard toolbar or the Tools menu. Context-sensitive help provides information on each setting. 20