ABBYY Recognition Server - 3.0 Data Sheet

ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 Data Sheet

Overview
Where to Use
Key Features
How ABBYY Recognition Server Works
What’s New?
Functionality
Licensing Policy
Trial Version
Specifications

Overview

ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 is the ideal choice for organizations that are looking for an efficient automated OCR and
document capture solution. This robust, powerful yet simple server-based solution is designed for mid- to high-volume
document processing across large departments and enterprises. It can be either deployed as a standalone program or
integrated with a third-party system such as DMS, RMS, and electronic archiving system.

Where to Use

Creation of Searchable Archives and Digital Libraries

With its highly scalable distributed architecture, ABBYY Recognition Server is very efficient in high-volume OCR and document
conversion.
The main components of ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 include Serv er M a nage r, a cen t ra l unit des ign ed for syst em
management, and Processing Stations, which perform OCR and document conversion . O ne Serve r Man a ger can contr o l a
virtually unlimited number of Processing Stations connect e d to it. It effect ively d istribu t es all recog nit i on and conv e rsion tasks
among the Processing Stations and CPUs, balancing the workload across the system resources. By connecting dozens of
Processing Stations to the server, you can increase the throughput to several hundred pages per minute.
ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 can save documents in archive- fr iend ly formats, such as TIFF, XML and PDF. PDF files created
by the program comply with the PDF/A standard for long-tem preservation. Advanced MRC compression helps to achieve
significantly smaller file sizes without any visible loss in qua lity .

ABBYY Recognition Server also offers a range of features aimed at making high-volum e document conversion more
productive yet cost-effective:

• Automated Document Conversion

OCR and document conversion are automated and performed on back-end servers. By eliminating user involvement

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in the conversion process, ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 significan t ly re d uce s the tim e spen t on docu m ent
processing.

• Advanced Scheduling

The product provides advanced scheduling options for managing task priorities and controlling the load of the
processing stations during a day or week. For instance, some workstations can be set up for round-the-clock
operation, and others for night-time OCR processing, while in the daytime these workstations can be used to
perform the usual office tasks. Thanks to these options, your company won’t need to purchase unnecessary
hardware and will be able to use the existing resources in the most efficient way .

• Easy Scanning and Sorting

ABBYY Recognition Server 3.0 provides user-friendly interface for batch scanning, document separation, sorting and
key indexing. Routine operations can be automated by using script ed ru l es, wh ich te ll ABBYY Recog n it ion Serve r how
to classify and index the document according to its content.

Document Capture Front-End For ECM Systems

Effective document management is an essential part of any effective business. Many organizations have adopted document or
content management systems for storing their documents and routing them throughou t the organ izat io n’s busines s
processes. However, installing a CMS system is only part of the story, as it needs a supplemental tool to capture new
documents that come every day from various entry points in the company.
ABBYY Recognition Server is a powerful yet convenient front-end to an ECM system. It o ffers an intu it ive interfac e fo r
scanning and indexing documents as well as an automated engine for converting those documents into a searchable format.
The documents are classified, either automatically or by an operator, and routed to the appropriate destination based on their
type and attributes. The product can also operate as a web service and support s remot e docume n t uplo ad. The r efor e its
implementation is not restricted to one office but can serve several remote entry points at a time.
Feature highlights:

• Intuitive Scanning and Indexing int erfac es

ABBYY Recognition Server includes Scanning and Index ing Stat ion s that allo w ope ra to rs to captu re docum ents
quickly and easily on their PCs. The stations have intuitive and user-friendly interfaces that will be clear to both a
back-office assistant and a knowledge worker without pr ior tra ining .

• Automated OCR and document conversion

OCR and document conversion, the most resource-intensive part of the processing, are done automatically on the
server back-end and requires no user involvement whatsoever.

• Compatible with different kinds of ECM systems

ABBYY Recognition Server provides a ready-t o-use connector to Microsoft SharePoint Server and flexible scripting
capabilities for linking the software to virtually any ECM system. Various kinds of connectors can be created as Java
or VB scripts.

Everyday OCR service

OCR is only performed by certain users in a company and at certain times it can be done on users’ own PCs. In the case of
small- to medium-sized businesses, this “ad hoc” scenario can be implemented in a flexible and fast manner by installing
ABBYY FineReader Professional Edition or ABBYY FineReader Corporate Edition.
For large organizations with hundreds or even thousands of employees converting a variety of different document types, this
per-user installation is not suitable. Installing the desktop version would require significantly more effort involved in
maintenance, administration, training and supervision. Moreover, the cost of licensing so many desktop versions may be
unreasonably high.
The most efficient solution for large organizations in need of distributed OCR is to deploy a single, centralized OCR and
document conversion service running on a server back-end. Employees can use the centralized OCR service on the network at
any time, even outside normal busin ess hours, and from any location. ABBYY Recognition Server is ideally suited for that
purpose and offers a range of unique advantages:

• Round-the-clock availability of OCR service

There is no need for an administrator to install the program on each workstation in the local area network. All the
company’s employees have access to the server-based OCR functionalit y automa tica lly and at all t imes.

• Low-cost maintenance

The installation, configuration and administra t ion of ABBYY Recog n ition Serv er are easy and cost-efficient because
these operations are performed on a single server rather than on many desktop computers.

• No special training is required

Users of ABBYY Recognition Server don't need to have any knowledge of OCR technology at all. All they need to
know about the program is where to send a document in order to get its recognized version back.

• OCR available even for remote workers

ABBYY Recognition Server supports remote access via e-mail and the Web and therefore can be accessible to users
not only from within the local area network but from remote computers as well (e.g. from an employee’s home PC,
or from a laptop during a business trip).

• Easy integration with all kinds of MFPs

An administrator can easily associate ABBYY Recognition Server with all network scanners and MFPs in the
company’s IT infrastructure. Thus, wherever employees scan documents, they will always be able to have them
converted into a DOC or PDF format right away.

OCR IFilter for Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server and Windows® Search

Search for information is a vital part of any office workflow. As the organ iza tion gro ws, d ocumen ts sca tte r a cros s
departments, file folders and ECM system, and search takes more and more valuable time Microsoft® offers effective

ABBYY Software House Ukraine, P.O. Box 23, 02002 Kyiv, Ukraine. Tel: + 380 44 4909999, fax: [phone], [e-mail]
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instruments to organize enterprise search on different levels, from centralized content storages to individual desktops .
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server has powerfu l search capabilities in SharePoint document libraries and folder s; Windows
Search is helpful in finding files on desktop computers.
ABBYY Recognition Server IFilter is a powerful add-on to these engines that enables them with capability to search through
full content of image documents. Normally search engines can index full text only in document file form a ts like HTML, RTF ,
DOC, XLS etc. In reality, a lot of important information is contained in image files, such as JPEGs, or highly popular PDFs and
TIFFs, and remains invisible for conventional search eng ine s. Scanne d and photog raph e d docume n ts, invo ices , letters,
contracts – all these documents can be retrieved only using the file name, but not using the actual content of the document.
To extend full-text search over image documents and leave no important knowledge undiscovered, OCR functionality is a
must.
ABBYY Recognition Server with its OCR IFilter component is exactly the right solut ion: it “unlocks” the c onte nt of imag e
documents by means of OCR and makes it available for indexing by SharePoint Serve r a nd Window s Sear ch . W ith ABBYY
Recognition Server IFilter, the document search in the organ izat ion beco me s truly enco mpa ss ing.
How it works
ABBYY Recognition Server is integrated with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows Search as described below:

1. ABBYY Recognition Server is installed on a server computer (which may be sepa ra te f rom the SharePoint hosting
machine). A special component, ABBYY Recognition Server IFilter, is installed on top of the SharePoint Server and/or
user desktops to provide communication between the searc h system and the Re cognition Server. The IFilter is a light
component which consumes almost no computer resources and does not affect the response t ime of the Shar ePo in t
Server;

2. Microsoft SharePoint (or Windows Search) crawler traverses the libraries (or computer folders) searching for new
documents that need to be indexed. Each ABBYY IFilter receives image documents from the corresponding crawler
and passes them to ABBYY Recognition Server;

3. ABBYY Recognition Server automatically performs high-quality OCR on the images and sends the recognized text
back to the IFilter;

4. Microsoft search engine accepts the document contents from ABBYY IFilter and builds an index. The image then

With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server:

becomes discoverable via full-text search.

With Windows Search:

Solution Benefits

• “Unlocks” images in SharePoint Servers and on user desktop computers. A single installation of ABBYY

Recognition Server will OCR images from all computers and SharePoint Servers in the corporate network.

• Supports various image formats. A single ABBYY IFilter will take care of images in all kinds of image formats

from JPEG to TIFF, PDF and DjVu.

• Recognizes documents in all languages. ABBYY Recognition Server is based on the award-winn ing ABBYY OCR

technology which supports more than 190 languages, can process multi-lingual documents and provides superior
quality ensuring that no documents are left out from search.

• Powerful OCR on a dedicated server. ABBYY Recognition Server can be installed on a dedicated server computer

so that the resource-intensive OCR module is separated f rom the Shar eP oint Server and desktop computers and

ABBYY Software House Ukraine, P.O. Box 23, 02002 Kyiv, Ukraine. Tel: + 380 44 4909999, fax: [phone], [e-mail]
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doesn’t affect their productivity and work. In case of a large image backlog, ABBYY Recognition Server can be easily
scaled up by plugging additional OCR stations that will share the workload automatically.

• Takes care of all kinds of OCR tasks. ABBYY Recognition Server usage is not limited to integration with Microsoft

search. The product can also be used as a full-scale OCR and document conve rsion server for all kinds of tasks, from
converting a scanned document to Word to creating searchable PDF archives.

OCR for the Google Search Appliance™

Integrated with the Goggle Search Appliance, ABBYY Recognition Server significantly expands its capabilit ie s to effic ient ly
search information in distributed document sto rage sy stems and archives across the entire enterprise.
Finding necessary information scattered across different d epar tmen ts and e lectro n ic documen t sto rag e in a large organ izat ion
can be a real challenge unless you use an enterprise search system like t he Goog le Search Appliance. The Google Search
Appliance indexes documents in various storage locations and resources across the enterprise so that people can quickly find
any document by keywords. However, a lot of valuable information is typica lly sto red in the fo rm of images (such as scan ned
PDF files) and therefore is inaccessible to indexing and search engines.
Why ABBYY Recognition Server
ABBYY Recognition Server processes document images to make them sea rchab le . It reco gn izes images by applying optical
character recognition (OCR) technology, transforms images into text, and sends the output to the search system together
with links to the original documents. As a result, image do cumen ts sto re d in corpo ra te file shares become available for full­text search.
How It Works
Working in conjunction with the Google Search Appliance, A BBYY Recog n it ion Server monitors specified network file shares,
picks image files from them, and performs OCR on them. Then it submits the recognized text to the search system in an XML
feed along with links to the original images.

The text from the feed is included in the index. Now, if the user types a search qu ery tha t con ta ins a word from the text of
the document, the image will turn up in the search results .
Benefits
ABBYY Recognitions Server brings additional benefits to the users of the Google Search Appliance and makes the ir searc h
experience more fulfilling and efficient.

• No documents are left out. ABBYY Recognition Server crawls specified document storage resources and indexes

all image content. Combined with the Google Search Appliance engine, it searches all documents in both text and
image formats, leaving no valuable information overlooked.

• Accurate search results ensured by cutting-edge OCR technologies. ABBYY’s award- winn ing OCR technologies

used in Recognition Server ensure the accuracy of text extraction even when processing low-quality images, thus
providing reliable search results.

• Multi-language search. ABBYY Recognition Server supports OCR in more than 190 languages and allows multi-

language documents to be indexed correctly.

• Full-fledged OCR server a t your ser vi ce. ABBYY Recognition Server is a powerful OCR service available 24* 7 for

various document conversion tasks your company may encounter on a daily basis. Let Recognition Server enhance
your business processes while performing background OCR for the Go og le Searc h App lia nce at the same time.

• Scalable to any hardware configuration. ABBYY Recognition Server gives you full control of the CPU resources

used for performing OCR. You can scale up the system capacity by adding more servers to boost the recognition
speed, or limit the recognition process to certain CPU cores so that it does not interfere with other programs running
on the server.

Key Features

Takes care of the whole document capture process

ABBYY Recognition Server covers all steps of document capture, from scanning to indexing and exporting documents to
archiving and content management systems.

Quick in deployment and easy to use

ABBYY Recognition Server has an intuitive interface and can be set up and operated without prior training.

Designed for processing high volumes of documents

ABBYY Recognition Server is known for its unmatched scalability. The solu t ion is easily e xtendable to multi-core CPUs or
multiple servers, and therefore able to cope with any volume of documents, processing them as scheduled or round-the­clock.

Compatible with various sc anners and ECM systems

ABBYY Recognition Server will supplement your scanning devices and back-end software with powerful document capture
functionality.

Ready-made connectors to Microsoft and Google Enterprise Search systems

ABBYY Software House Ukraine, P.O. Box 23, 02002 Kyiv, Ukraine. Tel: + 380 44 4909999, fax: [phone], [e-mail]
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