L E G A L NO 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. I M P O R T A N T NO T I C E 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. TRA D E M A R K S A N D CR E D I 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 PA R T Y LICE N S E S / NO T I C E S 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 OM N I PA G E OmniPage Documents The OmniPage Desktop Basic Processing Steps 17 17 18 19 PROCESSING 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 PROOFING 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 SAVING 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 TECHNICAL 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. 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 ...