Nuance OMNIPAGE PRO 9 User Manual
OmniPage® Pro
User’s Manual
CAERE CORPORATION
100 Cooper Court
Los Gatos, California
95032-7603 USA
Caere GmbH
Innere Wiener Strasse 5
81667 München, Germany
Caere UK Information Centre
Abbey House
4 Abbey Orchard Street
Westminster, London SW1P 2JJ
Centre d’informations Caere
72, rue Baratte-Cholet
94100 S a int-Maur, Fran ce
Please Note
To u se this program, you should know how to work in t he Microsoft Windows environ me nt. Please
refer to Windows documentation if you have questions about how to use menu commands, dialog
boxes, scroll bars, edit boxes, and so on.
OmniPage Pro for Window s
Ver si on 9
Copyright© 1998 Caere Corporation. All rights reserved. The Caere logo, Caere®, OmniPage®,
OmniPage Pro®, PageKeeper®, Language Analyst®, 3D OCR®, AutoOCR Toolbar™, Tr ue Page®,
and OCR Proofreader are trademarks of Caere Corporation
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Such designations appearing in this manual have been printed in initial
capitals.
ii
800-1288-030A
Welcome
Using This Manual ............................................................................................................viii
Chapter 1 Installation and Setup
Minimum System Requirements.........................................................................................2
Installing OmniPage Pro .....................................................................................................2
Starting and Closing OmniPage Pro...................................................................................3
Registering OmniPage Pro ..................................................................................................5
Chapter 2 Introduction to OmniPage Pro
What Is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?................................................................8
OmniPage Pro’s OCR Capabilities ..............................................................................8
Basic Steps of OmniPage Pro OCR .............................................................................9
The OmniPage Pro Desktop .............................................................................................10
AutoOCR Tool b a r ..................... .. ... ................... ... .. .................... .. .. .................... .. ... ....11
Standard Toolbar..........................................................................................................12
Zone Toolbar.................................................................................................................12
Options Dialog Box......................................................................................................13
Getting Online Help ...........................................................................................................14
Help Menu ....................................................................................................................14
Conte x t- S e ns i t i ve He l p.. .. ... ......... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... ... .. .................... .. .. ............15
Produ c t S u p p or t ............. .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. ................... ... .. .......... .. ... .........1 6
Table of Contents
Chapter 3 Processing Documents
Ways to Process Documents ..............................................................................................18
Using the OCR Wizard................................................................................................18
Automatic Processing
Performing Multiple Tasks at Once...........................................................................19
Starting the OCR Process Outside OmniPage Pro ..................................................19
Bringing Document Images into OmniPage Pro ...........................................................20
Scan ni ng Pa g e s .................... .. ... ................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... .. 2 0
Load in g I ma g e F il e s ...... .......... .. .. .......... ... .. ................... ... .. .................... .. ... ................20
Creating Zones for OCR ....................................................................................................22
Creating Zones Automatically ...................................................................................22
.................................................................................................19
iii
Performing OCR on a Document .....................................................................................23
Proofreading OCR Results ................................................................................................24
Verifying Text ..............................................................................................................25
Proofreading OCR Results in Microsoft Word .......................................................25
Using OCR in Other Applications ...................................................................................29
Worki ng with Docum e nt s ................ ... .. .................... .. .. .......... ... .. ................... ... .. .............30
Resizing a Page View .................................................................................................31
Chang in g P a g es .. .. ... .......... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. ................... ... .. .......... .. .31
Reordering Pages ........................................................................................................32
Delet in g P ages ................... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... .. .32
Printing a Document ..................................................................................................33
Closing a Document ...................................................................................................33
Exporting Documents ........................................................................................................34
Saving a Document......................................................................................................34
Copying a Document to the Clipboard ....................................................................36
Sending a Document as a Mail Attachment ............................................................37
Chapter 4 OmniPage Pro Settings
Setting AutoOCR Toolbar Commands ............................................................................40
AUTO Button Commands..........................................................................................41
Image Button Commands...........................................................................................41
Zone Button Commands.............................................................................................42
OCR Button Commands .............................................................................................43
Export Button Commands..........................................................................................44
Selecting OmniPage Pro Settings......................................................................................45
Accur a cy Se t t i ng s ....... .......... .. ... ................... .. ... ................... ... .. .................... .. .. ..................46
Scanner Settings...................................................................................................................46
Page Format Settings ..........................................................................................................47
Tables Settings .....................................................................................................................47
Langu age Settings . ... .. .......... .. ... ................... .. ... ................... ... .. .................... .. .. ..................48
OCR Aware Settings ...........................................................................................................48
Process Settings ...................................................................................................................49
Microsoft Word Settings ....................................................................................................50
Settings Guidelines .............................................................................................................51
Chapter 5 Customizing OCR
Adjusting Page Images Before OCR.................................................................................62
Customizing Zones.............................................................................................................63
Zone too l b a r.... .................... .. .. .......... ... .. ................... ... .. .................... .. ... ................... .. .63
Drawing Zones Manually ..........................................................................................64
Modifying Text and Graphic Zones ..........................................................................65
Modifying Table Zones...............................................................................................69
Delet in g Zo n e s....... ... .......... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... .. .71
Chang in g Zone Prope rties.... ... .. .................... .. ... ................... .. ... ................... ... .. ........71
Creating Zone Templates............................................................................................73
iv
Spec if y in g F o nts ......... .. ... ................... .. ... .......... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ..74
Training OCR for Special Characters ...............................................................................75
Creating User Dictionaries.................................................................................................77
Saving Settings Files............................................................................................................78
Scheduling OCR ..................................................................................................................80
Scheduling Individual Documents............................................................................80
Scheduling Documents from an Input Folder ........................................................81
Modifying Output Options for Documents .............................................................83
Chapter 6 Technical Information
General Troubleshooting Solutions .................................................................................86
Solutions to Try First ...................................................................................................86
Testing OmniPage Pro.................................................................................................87
Low Memory Problems...............................................................................................88
Low Disk Space Problems...........................................................................................88
Supported File-Format Types............................................................................................89
Scan ne r S e tu p I ss u e s ...... .. .......... .. ... ......... ... .. .................... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ..91
Scanner Drivers Supplied by the Manufacturer......................................................91
Scanner Drivers Supplied by Caere...........................................................................92
Scan Manager is Needed with OmniPage Pro ........................................................92
Problems Connecting OmniPage Pro to Your Scanner ..........................................93
Missing
Scanner Message on Launch.......................................................................................94
System Crash Occurs While Scanning ......................................................................94
Scanner Not Listed in Supported Scanners List Box...............................................95
Scan ni ng Tips . .......... .. .. .................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... .. ... .........95
OCR Problems .. .......... .. ... ................... .. ... ................... ... .. .......... .. ... ................... ... .. ........... ...96
System Crash During OCR.........................................................................................96
Text Does Not Get Recognized Properly..................................................................97
Problems With Fax Recognition.................................................................................98
Uninstalling the Software...................................................................................................99
Scan Image
Comman d
...................................................................................94
v
vi
W elcome
Welcome to OmniPage Pro, and thank you for using our software!
The following documentation has been provided to help you learn
about OmniPage Pr o.
This User’s Manual
This manual intr oduces you to the basi cs of using OmniPag e Pr o. It
includes installatio n and setup instr uctions, an introduction to
OmniPage Pro, task-oriented instructions, ways to customize
processing, settings guidelines, and technical information.
This manual is also available as an electronic PD F file. To open the file,
Start
click
Applications
Pro has been installed.
Online Help
OmniPage Pro’s online Help contains detailed information on features,
settings , and procedures . The online Help con f orms to Win dows 95
Help conventions and has been designed for quick and easy information
retrieval. Please see “Getting Online Help” on page 14 for more
information.
in the Windows tas kbar and choose
Caere DocumentsOmniPage Pro Manual
Programs
after OmniPage
Caere
Readme File
Readme
The
Please read it before using OmniPage Pro. To open this text file, click
Start
in the Windows tas kbar and choose
Applications
Pro has been installed.
Scanner Setup Notes
Scanner Setup Notes
The
and related issues. To open this PDF file, click
taskbar and choose
Scanner Setup Notes
file co nta i ns last-minute inf o rmation ab o u t the so f t wa re.
Programs
Caere DocumentsOmniPage Pro Readme
contains informati on about supported sca nners
Programs
after OmniPage Pro has been in stalled.
Caere ApplicationsCaere Documents
Caere
after OmniPage
Start
in the Windows
vii
Using This Manual
Using This Manual
This manual is written with the assumption that you know how to work
in the Microsoft Window s e nvironment . P lease refer to your Windows
document ation if you have q u e stions about how t o u se dialog boxes,
menu commands , scroll bars, d rag and drop functionality, shortcut
menus, and so on .
The following conventions are used in this manual.
Convention Purpose
Italicized text
Note symbo l
Warning symbol
• Emphasi zes menu commands ,
dialog box options, labeled
buttons, and file names
For example:
“Choose
menu.”
• Emphasize s new terms the
first time they are used
• Emphasizes important word s
in a sentence
Introduces a tip or an item of
note
Introduces important
information
Open...
in the File
viii
Chapter 1
Installation and Setup
This chapter provides installation and setup information for OmniPage
Pro and the Scan Manager.
For technical and troubleshooting information, please read Chapter 6,
Tech ni c al In f o rm a tio n .
For information on su pported scanners and scanner setu p , read the
Scanner Setup Notes
taskbar and choose
Scanner Setup Notes
This chapter contains the following topics:
• Min imum System Requirements
• Installing OmniPage Pro
• Starting and Closing OmniPage Pro
• Registering OmniPage Pro
. To open this PDF file, click
Programs
after OmniPage Pro has been in stalled.
Caere ApplicationsCaere Documents
Start
in the Windows
1
Minim u m Sy stem Requ irem ents
Minimum System Requirements
You need the following setup, at minimum, to install and run OmniPage
Pro:
• Computer with a 486 or higher processor
• Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0
• 16MB of memory (RAM)
• 45MB of free hard disk space to install application files, the Scan
Manager, and one OCR language
55MB to install above files and al l OCR la nguages
• SVGA or VGA monitor with 256 colors
• Windows-compatible pointing device
• CD-ROM drive for inst allation
• A compatible scanner if you plan to scan documents
Please see the
Performance and speed will be enhanced if your computer’s processor,
memory, and available disk space exceed the minimum requirements.
Scanner Setup Notes
for a list of tested scanners.
Installing OmniPage Pro
OmniPage Pro’s Setup program takes you through installation with
onscree n instructions at e very step.
Before installing OmniPage Pro:
• Make sure your scann e r is connected, turned on, and compat ible
with your system.
• Close all other applications, especially anti-virus programs.
• Log into your computer with administrator privileges if you are
installing on Windows NT.
If you own a previous version of OmniPage Pro, or if you are upgrading
from OmniPage Limited Edition, it is strongly recommended that you
uninstall that product first and then restart your computer.
2 Chapter 1
Star ti n g an d Closing Om n i Pa ge Pro
To install OmniPage Pr o:
1 Insert OmniPage Pro’s CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive.
The Setup prog ram should star t au tomatically. If it does not
start, lo cate your CD-ROM drive in Windows Expl orer and
double-click the Setup.exe program at the top-level of the
CD-ROM.
2 Follow the instructions on each s creen to install the software.
During installation, you may be prompted to enter a serial
number. You can find your serial number on the label of the
CD-ROM envelope.
The Caere Scan Manager is installed during OmniPage Pro installation.
You will be prompted to select your scanner manufacturer and model in
the Scan M anag er so t ha t yo u ca n use yo ur scanne r wi t h Omn iPag e Pr o.
Read the
scanner suppo rt and setu p. You can open the Notes a fter OmniPag e Pro
has been installed by clicking
choosing
Setup Notes
Scanner Setup Notes
Programs
.
Caere Applicati onsCaere Documents
for the most detailed information about
Start
in the Windows tas kbar and
Scanner
Starting and Closing OmniPage Pro
If you plan to scan, make sure your scanner is attached to your compu ter
and turned on before you start OmniPage Pro.
To start OmniPage Pro, do one of the following:
•Click
• Double-click the OmniPage Pro icon located in the folder where
Installation and Setup 3
Start
in the Windows taskbar and choose
Applications
(Use the program group you selected during installation if it is
different than
you installed OmniPage Pro.
OmniPage Pro 9.0
Caere A pplicat ions
.
.)
Programs
Caere
Starting and Closing OmniPage Pro
OmniPage Pro’s desktop appears when you open OmniPage Pro. See
“The OmniPage P ro De sktop” on page 10 for an intro duction to
OmniPage Pro’s user interface.
Standard
toolbar
Zone
toolbar
AutoOCR
toolbar
The
thumbnail
viewer
displays the
pages in an
open
document.
The image viewer
displays t h e current
page’s original image.
The text viewer displays the
current page’s recognized
text and re t ai ned graphic s .
Closing OmniPage Pro
Choose
Exit
in the file menu to close OmniPage Pro. You are prompted
to save th e current document if you have not saved it or have modified
it since the last save.
4 Chapter 1
Registering OmniPage Pro
Register y our copy of OmniPage Pro wit h Caere Corp oration to receive
notification of special offers and the best prices on product upgrades.
Some versions of OmniPage Pro will only launch 25 times if you do not
register it.
If you purchased your product directly from Caere or if you were
previously registered, you may not need to register again. Your version
of OmniPage Pro will not displ a y a
register it.
To register OmniPage Pro:
Register
Registering OmniPage Pro
menu if you do not need to
1 Click the
2 Click
3 Fill out the information requested on the screen and then click
Next
4 Follow the instructions on the screen.
OmniPage Pro will decide on the best metho d of registration
according to your country and computer system. It may try
using mode m, FTP, or HTTP connections to tra nsmit your
registration information directly. Or, it may prompt you to call
a phone number or print out and mail in your registra tion
information.
After registration is complete, you will be given a registration number.
Be sure to write that number down and keep it handy in case you need
to use it for reinstallation. If you reinstall OmniPage Pro using your
registration number on the same comp uter, you will not have to go
through the entire registration process again to rer e gister it.
To reregister OmniPage Pro after reinstallation:
1 Click the
Register
Register Now
.
Register
menu to open the Regi ste r dialog box.
.
menu to open the Regi ste r dialog box.
2 Click
3 Type in your registration number and click OK.
Installation and Setup 5
Reregister
.
6 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Introduction to
OmniPage Pro
You probably use your computer for most business correspondence and
other written projects. The challenge is that certain sources of
information cannot be immediately used on a computer.
For example, if you want to incorporate information from a magazine
article into a document in your word processor, you somehow hav e to
get the text from the article into your computer. Painstakingly retyping
the article is not an appealing solution.
OmniPage Pro offers a smart solution to increase your work
productivity. OmniPage P ro’s
technology accurately and easily converts scanned paper documents
and image files into editable text for use in your favorite computer
applications. OmniPage Pro eliminates the need for manual retyping.
optical character recognition (OCR)
Please continue reading this chapter for information on these topics:
• What Is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?
• The OmniPage Pro Desktop
• Getting Online Help
• Product Support
7
What Is Optical Charac ter Recognition (OCR)?
What Is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?
Optical character rec ognition (OCR
computer-editable text. An image is an electronic pic tur e of text such as
a scanned paper document or an electronic fax file. Images do not have
editable te xt characters; they have many tiny dots (
form a pi cture of tex t.
During OCR, OmniPage Pro analyzes an image and define s characters
to produce editable text. After OCR, you can save the resulting text to a
variety of word-processing, page layout, and spreadsheet applications.
) is the process of turning an
OmniPage Pro’s OCR Capabilities
In addition to text recognition, OmniPage Pro can retain the following
elements of a document during OCR.
Graphics
Photos, logos, and drawings are examples of graphics.
Text formatting
Font types, fon t sizes, and fo nt styles (such as bold or
of text format ting.
Page formatting
Column structure, paragraph spacing, table formats, and placement of
graphics are examples of page formatting.
pixels
) that togeth e r
italic
) are exam ples
image
into
The graphics, text formatting, and page formatting elements that
OmniPage Pro retains are determined by t he settings you select. See
“Settings Guidelines” on page 51 for more information.
OmniPage Pro only recognizes machine -pr int ed charac ters such as
laser-printed or typewritten text. However, it can retain handwritten
text, such as a signature, as a graphic.
8 Chapter 2
What Is Optical Charac ter Recognition (OCR)?
Basic Steps of OmniPage Pro OCR
These are the basic steps of OmniPage Pro’s OCR process.
1 Bring a document image into OmniPage Pro.
You can scan a paper document or load an image file. The
resulting image appears in OmniPage Pro’s image viewer. See
“Bringing Document Images into OmniPage Pro” on page 20 for
more information.
2 Create zones to identify areas you want to recognize as
text or retain as graphics.
Zones
are borders that enclose the areas of a document image that
will get processed. Yo u can create zones autom ati cally, manually,
or with a templa te . Any areas not en closed by zones ar e ignored
during OCR. See “Creating Zones for OCR” on page 22 for more
information.
3 Perform OCR to convert text information into editable
text characters.
During OCR, OmniPage Pro interprets text characters i n an image.
After OCR, you can check and correct errors in the text using the
OCR Proofreader. See “Per forming OCR on a Document” on page
23 for more information .
4 Export the document to the desired location.
You can sav e your doc umen t to a specified file format, plac e it on
the Clipboard, or send it as a mail attachment. See “Exportin g
Documents” on page 34 for more information.
There are differ en t ways to start th e OC R proce ss in Omn iPage Pro. See
“Ways to Process Documents” on page 18 for more information.
Intr od u ction to OmniPage Pro 9
The OmniPage Pro Desktop
The OmniPage Pro Desktop
OmniPage Pro’s desktop displays the pages of an open document in its
thumbnail viewer, image viewer, and text viewer. You can use buttons
in the Standard, AutoOCR, and Zone toolba rs to perfo rm various tasks
on the document.
Standard
toolbar
Zone
toolbar
AutoOCR
toolbar
The
thumbnail
viewer
displa ys a
picture o f
each page
in the
document.
The cur rent
page is
highlighted
with a light
border
around it.
The image viewer
displays the current
page’s original image.
Drag this splitter to
the left or right to
resize a viewer.
The t ex t vi ew er dis pl ay s th e
current page’s recognized
text and retained graphics.
10 Chapter 2
AutoOCR T oolbar
The AutoOCR® toolbar contains buttons that can activate each step of
the OCR process.
The OmniPage Pro Desktop
AUTO
button
Image
button
Click the down arrow to
display the commands in a
button’s drop-down list.
Zone
button
OCR
button
Export
button
You can set different commands in the AutoOCR toolbar buttons for the
operations y o u want to perform. Choose a command u sing each
buttons’s drop-down list.
• The AUTO button allows you to activate automati c processing or
use the OCR Wizard.
•The Image button allows you to bring in images by scanning or
loading pages.
• The Zone button allows you to automatically create zones on
images based on their original page layouts or predefined
templates.
• The OCR button allows you to perform OCR, train characters for
OCR, or sched u le OCR at a later time.
• The Export button all ows you to save, copy, or send your
recognized document as a mail attachment.
Please see “Setting AutoOCR Toolbar Commands” on page 40 for more
information on each toolba r button. Also see the separately enclose d
OmniPage Pro 9 Reference card, which shows all available AutoOCR
toolbar com mands.
Intr od u ction to OmniPage Pro 11
The OmniPage Pro Desktop
Standard Toolbar
The Standar d toolbar contains buttons a nd a drop-down list fo r
performing standard tasks.
New
Open
Save
Print
Zone Toolbar
Options
Rotate
Image
Straighten
Image
Zoom
Help
Proofread
OCR
Cut
Copy
Paste
Undo
Image
Editor
View
The Zone toolbar contains buttons that allow you to draw and define
zones on a page image.
Draw
Rectangular
Zones
Add to
Zone
Reorder
Zones
Move Row
or Column
Divid ers
Insert
Row
Dividers
Remove/Repla ce
All Row and
Column Dividers
Table
tools
Draw
Irregular
Zones
Subtract
from
Zone
Zone
Properties
Insert
Column
Dividers
Remove Row or
Column Dividers
See “Customizing Zones” on page 63 for more information.
12 Chapter 2
Options Dialog Box
Click the tabs in
the Options
dialog box t o
view and select
different settings.
The OmniPage Pro Desktop
You can selec t se ttings for OmniPage Pr o in the Options dialog box. To
open it, click the Op tions butt on or choose
Options...
in the Tool s menu.
See Chapter 4, Om niPa ge Pro Sett ings, f or more inf ormat ion on s ett ings.
Intr od u ction to OmniPage Pro 13
Gettin g O n lin e He lp
Getting Online He lp
In addition to using this manu al, you can use OmniPage Pro’s onli ne
Help topics to learn about features, settings, and procedures. Online
Help is available after you install OmniPage Pro.
OmniPage P ro’s online Help follows t he conventions of Microso f t
Windows 95 Help. Ch oose
menu to get information on us in g He lp.
Help Menu
One way to open Omni Page Pro ’s onl ine Hel p is to c hoose c ommands in
the Help men u.
How to Use Help...
in OmniPage Pro’s Help
• Choose
listings for OmniPage Pro Help topics.
• Choose
Pro.
• Choose
that explai n how to u se and customize Hel p .
• Choose
services for OmniPage Pro.
• Choose
• Choose
version of OmniPage Pro.
14 Chapter 2
OmniPage Pro Help Topics
Getting Started
How to Use Help...
Product Support
Tip of the Day
About OmniPage Pro...
to get int roductor y topics to OmniPage
to get Microsoft Windows Help topics
to find ou t h o w to g e t p rod uct supp or t
to get hints for using OmniPage Pro.
to get information about you r
to get co n t e n t s and index
Context-Sensitive Help
You can get on-the-spot information abou t a p a rticular OmniPage Pro
command, toolbar button, or dialog box option in the following ways:
• Click the Help button in the Standard toolbar and then click any
toolbar button, menu command, or area of the OmniPage Pro
desktop to display a Help topic explaining that item.
• Click the question-mark button in the upper-right corner of a
dialog box and then click an item in the dialog box to get a popup explanation for that item.
• Some d ia l o g bo x e s h a ve a
information about th at dialog box.
Help
button. Click
Getting Onlin e Help
Help
to get
Intr od u ction to OmniPage Pro 15
Product Support
Product Support
For the fastest and easiest way to get help, please look for soluti ons in
this manual or in the online Help. See “General Troubleshooting
Solutions” on page 86 for troublesh ooting tips.
If you need additional help, please use the following resources:
• Cae re ’s World Wide Web site
Go to Caere’s World Wide Web site fo r common question s and
answers, updates, patches, troubleshooting procedures, and
product information. Caere’s Web site address:
http://www.caere.com
• OmniPage Pro Readme file
Read the
about the software. This is available after installing OmniPage
Pro. To open the file, click
choose
OmniPage Pro Readme
• Scanner Setup Notes
Read the
scanners and relat ed iss u es. This document has been provided to
you as an electronic document in PDF format. To open this
documen t , click
Programs
Notes
• Caere Product Support document
Read the
telephone numbers, incl ud ing ones for int e rnational product
support. This document has been provided to you as an
electronic document in PDF format. To open this document, click
Start
Applications
OmniPage Pro Readme
Programs
Scanner Setup Notes
Caere Appl ic ationsCaere Documents
.
Caere Product Support
in the Windows tas kbar and choose
Caere Applications Caere Documents
Start
Caere Documents Product Support
.
in the Windows tas kbar and choose
file for last-minute information
Start
in the Windows taskbar and
document to learn about supported
document to get a list of support
Programs
Scanner Setup
Caere
.
You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader 3. 01 or greater inst alled if
you want to read the
PDF documents. To install the Reader, click
taskbar and choose
Acrobat Reader.
16 Chapter 2
Caere Product Support
Programs
Caere Applications Caere Documents
Scanner Setup Notes
and
Start
in the Windows
Chapter 3
Processing Documents
This chapter describ e s how to work with documents in OmniPage Pro,
including each step of the OCR process.
There are different ways to accomplish the same tasks in OmniPage Pro.
You can use toolbar buttons or menu commands to start procedures.
OmniPage Pro can perform all O CR ste ps automa tica lly, or you can sta rt
each step individually. You can even do diff erent tas ks at the same time.
Please continue reading this chapter for information on these topics:
• Ways to Process Documents
• Br ingin g Documen t Images into OmniPage Pro
•Creating Zones for OCR
• Performing OCR on a Document
• Proofreadi ng OCR Results
• Using OCR in Other Applications
• W orking with D ocuments
• Exporting Documents
For complete information on all OmniPage Pro commands, settings, and
procedures, please use OmniPage Pro’s online Help. See “Getting
Online Help” on page 14 for more information.
17
Ways to Process Do cuments
Ways to Process Documents
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process of turning an image
into compu te r-editable text so you do not h ave to retype th e text
manually. The basic steps of OmniPage Pro’s OCR process are explained
on page 9. The following is a summ ary of those steps.
1 Bring a document image into OmniPa ge Pro.
See page 20 for more information.
2 Create zones to identify areas you wan t to recognize as te xt or
retain as graphics.
See page 22 for more information.
3 Perform OCR to convert text information into editable text
characters.
See page 23 for more information.
4 Exp or t the docu ment to the d e s i red lo c ation.
See page 34 for more information.
Using the OCR Wizard
The OCR Wizard guides you through the entire OCR process by asking
you question s ab out your document and selecting the ap p ropriate
settings for you.
To process your document using the OCR Wizard:
1Set
2 Click AUTO or choose
3 Answer the question in the first screen and click
4 Continu e answering questions in the screens that follow.
18 Chapter 3
OCR Wiz ard
down list.
The first wizard screen appears.
as the command in the A UTO button’s drop-
OCR Wizard
in the Process menu.
Next
.
Automatic Processing
Use the AUTO but ton to proce ss a new docu ment fr om s tart to f inis h or
to finish processing an open document.
To process your document automatically:
Ways to Proc ess Documents
1Set
2 Set the desired Image, Zone, OCR, and Export commands.
3 Choose
4 Place y o ur document in your sca nner if you are scanning.
5 Click AUT O or choose
AutoOCR
down list.
See “Setting AutoOCR Toolbar Commands” on page 40 for
more information.
appropriate for your document.
See “Settings Guidelines” on page 51 for more information.
Each page of the document is processed and finished in order
according to the selected commands. If page i mages in an open
document alr e ady ha ve zon e s, OmniPage Pro will ski p zon ing
for those pages and continue with the selected OCR an d export
operations.
as the command in the AUTO button’s drop-
Options...
in the Tools menu and check that settings are
AutoOCR
Performing Multiple Tasks at Once
OmniPage Pro takes advant age of your computer’s abi lity to handle
more than one process at a time. You can simultaneously scan, create
zones, recognize, and edit documents. You do not have to wait for any
process to complete before moving on to the next task.
For example, if you s can a multi ple-page document, y ou can draw zones
on an image as soon as the first page is scanned and you can edit
recognized text as soon as it appears in the text viewer. These tas ks can
be done while other pages are being scanned and recognized.
in the Process menu.
Starting the OCR Process Outside OmniPage Pro
You can start the OCR process outside OmniPage Pro i n a variety of
ways. For example, you can use the
from another applica tion an d past e reco gnize d text into an open
document. See “Using OCR in Other Applicatio ns” on page 29 for more
info r mation.
Proc es sing Documents 19
OCR Awa re
feature to in itiate OCR
Bringing Document Images into OmniPage Pro
Bringing Document Images into OmniPage Pro
You can bring document images into OmniPage Pro by scanning pages
or loading image files.
Scanning Pages
You can scan paper documents to convert them to electronic images in
OmniPage Pro. If a document is already open, scanned pages are
insert e d as ne w p a g es.
To scan in OmniPage Pro, you must install the Scan Manager and select
your default scanner. See “Scan Manager is Needed with OmniPage
Pro” on page 92 for more information.
To scan pages into OmniPage Pro:
1 Place your page in your scanner.
You can scan a stack of pag e s if you have an automatic
document feeder (ADF).
2Set
3 Choose
4 Click the Image button or choose
Scan Image
down list.
make sure the appropriate settings are selected.
Scan until empty
Select
pages in an ADF at once. Otherwise, you must click the Image
button to scan each subsequent page.
menu.
Pages are scanned in order and combined into one working
document.
Loading Image Files
You can load image files into OmniPage Pro. An image file is an
electronic picture of text, such as a scanned paper document or an
electron ic fax, that i s sa ved in an image fi le for mat suc h as PCX or T IFF.
If a document is already open, loaded image files are inserted as new
pages.
The following procedure is for loading image files only. To open an
OmniPage Document (*.met), use the
menu.
as the command in the Image button’s drop-
Options...
in the Tools menu and click the
in the
Scanner
Scan Im ag e
Open...
tab if you want to scan all
in the Process
command in the File
Scanner
tab to
20 Chapter 3
Bringing Document Images into OmniPage Pro
To load image files into OmniPage Pro:
1Set
Load Image
as the command in the I mag e button’s dr op -
down list.
2 Click the Image b utton or choose
Load Image
in the Proc e ss
menu.
The Load Image dialog box appears.
Click Advanced if
you want to sel ect
files from more
than one folder.
3 Select the folder location and file type of the file you want to
load.
See “Supported File-Format Types” on page 89 for a complete
list of suppor te d file formats.
4 Select the files you want to load.
You can S hift-c lick or Ctrl-c lick to select m ultip le files in the
same folder.
folder
Advanced
.
if you want to sel e ct files from more than one
• S elect a file and click
•Click
Add All
Open
to add all files from the current folder.
when you have selected all the files you want to
Add
to put it i n th e
Selected Files
list.
5 Click
6 Click
load.
Image files are loaded in the order selected and combined into
one wor k in g do cu m e nt .
If you have el e ctronic fax f ile s that you want to convert to editable text,
save the fax files in TIFF format and load them into OmniPage Pro using
Load Im age
the
Proc es sing Documents 21
command .
Creating Zones for OCR
Creating Zones for OCR
These are text
zones. They
will be
converted to
text during
OCR.
Page images are displayed in OmniPage Pro’s image viewer where
zones
are created before OCR. Zones are b orders that identify areas of an
image that will be recognized as text or retained as graphics. Any part of
an image not enclosed by a zone is ignore d duri ng OCR.
This is a table zone. It will
be kept in a row- andcolumn format during OCR.
This is an unzoned
area. It will be ignored
during OCR.
This is a graphic zone. It
will be kept as a graphic
image during OCR.
The easiest way to create zones on a page is to let OmniPage Pro do it
automat ical ly fo r yo u. Howe ver, you may wan t to d raw z ones m anua lly
if you want to customize the way your page will be processed. For
example, if you only want to process certain areas of a page, you would
manually dr aw zones around the desired areas. For information on
drawing zones manually, modifying zones, deleting unwanted zones,
and using zone te mp lates, please see “Customi zing Zones” on page 63.
Creating Zones Automatically
OmniPage Pro can analyze a page and create zon es automatically for
you. It uses the selected setting in the Zone button to determine the text
flow on a page and brea k s it into ordere d zone s.
To create zones automatically:
1 Choose a se tting in the Zone button’s drop-down list that most
closely matches the format of your document.
You can choose
Spreadsheet Pages, Mixed Pages
“Zone Button Co mmands” on page 42 for more in for matio n on
these settings.
22 Chapter 3
Single-Column Pages, Multiple-Column Pages
, or a template of your own. Se e
,
Loading...