Nuance OMNIPAGE PRO X FOR MACINTOSH User Manual
LEGAL NOTICES
©2001 by 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 the Legal Department at
ScanSoft, Inc., 9 Centennial Drive, Peabody, Massachusetts 01960. Printed in the United
States of America an d in the N etherlands.
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.
MPORTANT NOTI CE
I
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.
RADEMARKS AND CREDITS
T
ScanSoft, OmniPage, OmniPage Pro, OmniPage Pro X, True Page, Direct OCR and Language
Analyst a re registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and in
other countries. Mac and Macintosh are re gistered tr ademarks of A pple Computer, Inc. in the
U.S. and in other countries.
All other trademarks and trade names mentioned herein are hereby acknowledged and
recognized as property of their respective owners.
ScanSoft Inc.
9 Centennial Drive
Peabody, MA 01960
U.S.A.
ScanSoft Europe BV
Randstad 22-139
1316 BW Almere
The Netherlands
Part Number: 50-941001-00A
C ONTENTS
Welcome 7
Chapter outline 7
Using this Guide 8
How to use online Help 8
Other online resources 9
New features in OmniPage Pro X 10
1 Installation and setup 11
System requirements 12
Installing the software 12
Running the program under Mac OS 9 13
Starting OmniPage Pro 14
Selecting your scanner 14
Registering OmniPage Pro 18
Removing OmniPage Pro 18
2Introduction 19
What is Optical Character Recogniti on? 20
Beyond OCR 20
Basic steps in the OCR process 21
The OCR Toolbar
The full OmniPage Pro interface 23
The Document window 24
The Thumbnail window 24
The Zone Info and Tools palettes 25
The Preferences dialog box 26
22
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide iii
3 Processing documents 27
Basic processing steps 28
Automatic processing 28
To prepare for automatic processing 29
To process a new document automatically 30
To process an existing document automatically 31
Manual processing 32
Steps for manual processing 32
Using automatic and manual processing together 33
Using the OCR Assistant 34
Bringing page images into OmniPage Pro 36
Scanning pages 36
Loading image files 36
Opening OmniPage Documents 38
Using drag-and-drop 38
Creating and modifying zones 39
Creating zones automati cally 40
Specifying zone types 41
Drawing zones manually 44
Modifying zones 46
Table zones 49
Performing recognition 50
Performing OCR 50
Proofreading OCR results 51
Verifying recognized text 53
Color markers 54
Getting page information 54
Working with documents 55
Resizing a page display 55
Saving a document as you work 56
Moving to other pages 56
Reordering pages 56
Deleting a p age 57
Undoing edits 57
Modifying images 57
Modifying text 58
Printing a document 59
iv Contents
Listening to a document 60
Closing a document 60
Quitting OmniPage Pro 60
Exporting documents 61
Saving an Om niPage Document 61
Saving images 61
Saving recognition results 62
Saving to Portable Document Format ( PDF) 64
Copying a document to the Clipboard 64
Using drag-and-drop functionality 65
Direct OCR 66
Using Direct OCR 67
4Settings 69
OCR Toolbar options 70
Get Page options 70
Original Layout options 72
Style Set options 73
OCR options 75
Export options 75
Preference settings 76
Scanner settings 76
OCR settings 80
Spelling settings 82
Miscellaneous settings 85
5Customizing OCR 87
Specifying the style set 87
Specifying a global style set 90
Creating style sets 90
Applying and editing zone styles 91
Font mapping 94
Zone templates 96
Training OCR 97
User dictionaries 101
Settings files 102
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide v
6 Technical information 103
Troubleshooting 104
Solutions to try first 104
Low memory situations 104
Low disk space situations 105
Improving accuracy 105
Improving fax recognition 108
Interface problems and so lutions 109
System failure during OCR 109
Supported languages 110
Supported saving form ats 111
Supported image file formats 112
Index 113
vi Contents
Welcome
Welcome to OmniPage Pro X ™, and thank you for buying our
software! This User ’s Guide has been provided to help you get started
and give you an overview of the program.
Chapter outline
Chapter 1, Installation and setup, tells you ho w to ins tall an d start th e
program and select a scanner. It lists the system requirements and
provides guidance on registering the product.
Chapter 2, Introduction, explains the OCR process and how it forms
part of the OmniPage Pro workflow. It also presents the program’s
main working areas and controls, starting with the OCR Toolbar.
Chapter 3, Processing documents, tells you how to do automatic and
manual processing and how to combine them. It details processing
steps: acquiring pages, zoning, recognizing, proofing and exporting.
Chapter 4, Settings, gives detailed information on each of the choices
offered by the pop-up menus in the OCR Toolbar. It also guides you
through the choices in the panels of the Preferences dialog box.
Chapter 5, Customizing OCR, provides information on some more
advanced features, such as style sets and their zone styles, zone
templates, training, user dictionaries and settings files.
Chapter 6, Technical information, gives troubleshooting advice and
details the supported file formats and languages.
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide 7
Using this Guide
This Guide supposes that you know how to work in the Macintosh®
environment. Please refer to your Macintosh help resources if you
have questions about how to use dialog boxes, menus, scroll bars, and
so on. The following conventions are used in this Guide.
Convention Purpose
Italicized text • Emphasizes menu commands, dialog box options, button
and file names: “C hoose Open... in the File menu.”
• Names sections in this Guide.
• Emphasizes new terms the first time they are used.
Command key
symbol (
Note or Tip Introduces a tip or an item of note.
z)
Illustrat es keyboard shortcuts. For example: zC means
hold the Command key down as you press the letter “c”.
How to use online Help
OmniPage Pro X has an extensive HTML-based online Help system.
Click Help Contents or Help Index in the program’s Help menu to
open it. The Help system provides you with three tabbed panels:
u Contents: A three-level table of contents. Click a topic.
u Index: A two-level, alphabetical index. Enter a keyword or scroll
to the desired location and click an entry.
u Search: Search keywords thr ough th e who le text of all he lp top ics.
It lists all topics containing the specified word(s).
For advice on other Help facilities, please consult the documentation
for your HTML viewer.
Online help contains some topics not included in this User’s Guide:
an indexed glossary of terms, settings guidelines for a variety of
document types, a Quick Start Guide for reading a sample image file,
and documentation on Apple Event support and scripting.
8 Welcome
t To get help on buttons and pop-up menus
Brief help is a va ila ble wi thou t o pen in g the onli ne Help system. Hove r
the cursor over any button or pop-up list in the OCR Toolbar or the
palettes. A concise descrip tio n of th e con tro l ap pe ars in th e st at us lin e
along the base of the OCR Toolbar.
t To get help on topics and procedures
Select Help Index in OmniPage Pro’s Help menu. Begin to type in a
keyword you want to find. As you type in the first letters of a keyword,
the Help system automatically shows you the first top-level index
entry beginning with the letters typed in. OmniPage Pro’s structured
index helps you to quickly find answers for your questions.
Click an index entry to display its related top ic. If an entry is linked to
more than one topic, a pop-up list appears. Select the desired topic.
t To browse through a series of topics
Use the Previous and Next buttons top right of e ach topic. These allo w
you to view topics in the order they appear in the table of contents.
t To view recently viewed pages
Use the Back button to retrace your steps to your previously viewed
topics.
t To print a topic
Select the Print button, specify a printer to be used and print settings.
Other online resources
Readme files, in plain text and PDF formats, are located on the
installation CD. They contain last-minute information about
OmniPage Pro X. Please read one of them before installing the
application.
ScanSoft’s web site www.scansoft.com includes a Scanner Guide with
regularly updated information about supported scanners and related
issues. Access the site from the online Help topic Getting Help.
How to use online Help 9
New features in OmniPage Pro X
The family of OmniPage® products is now augmented by OmniPage
Pro X for Macintosh. Here we summarize its most important new
features compared to OmniPage Pro 8 for Macintosh.
u A better recognition engine has been integrated, capable of
delivering greater accuracy, particularly on degraded documents.
u Support for the Mac
interface exploits the improved display techniques of the new
system. Support is maintained for Mac OS 9.
u A new Assistant facility provides interactive step-by-step guidance
for users new to the world of OCR processing.
u Improved parsing of page elements to retain the formatting and
layout of the original pages, in particular better retention of color
graphics and smarter text/graphics detection.
u Better auto-detection and handling of tables and spreadsheets.
u Detection and recognition of reverse text (white or pale letters on
black or dark backgrounds).
®
OS X operating system. A revised user
10 Welcome
u Portable Document Format (PDF) files can be opened and their
contents transformed to editable text.
u Recognized pages can be saved to Portable Document Format
(PDF) files, ready for display, use on the Web or for file transfer.
u Export support added for MS Word 98, 2001 and X and MS
Excel 98.
u Improved export support for HTML (upgraded to HTML 4.0).
u Voice read-back facility for texts in English and Spanish.
Chapter 1
Installation and setup
This chapter pro vi des info rmatio n on insta lli ng O mn iPage Pro X and
selecting a scanner to use with it.
Please consult the Readme file which provides the most up-to-date
information on installing and running the program. Readme is
supplied in plain text and PDF formats. These files are copied from
the CD to the OmniPage Pro X folder during installation.
This User’s Guide is also supplied in PDF format. It is copied to the
sub-folder User’s Guide. The Mac OS X operating system includes a
PDF viewer. Under Mac OS 9, please use Adobe Acrobat. The PDF
files can be navigated easily using the bookmarks (table of contents),
page thumbnails and hyperlinks on cross references and index entries.
Please continue reading this chapter for the following information:
u System requirements
u Installing the software
u Running the program under Mac OS 9
u Starting OmniPage Pro
u Selecting your scanner
u Registering OmniPage Pro
u Removing OmniPage Pro
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide 11
System requirements
The minimum system requirements for OmniPage Pro X are:
u iMac, iBook, PowerBook, Power Macintosh or PowerPC
compatible computers with at least a G3 processor
u Mac OS 9.0 or later, Mac OS X (10.1 or above) and QuickTime
4.1 or later (this is normally included in OS X)
u 128 MB of memory (RAM) on Mac OS X; 64MB on Mac OS 9
with 32 MB allocated to OmniPage Pro (or 64 MB allocated to
handle full-page color images with more than 256 colors)
u 80 to 100 MB of free hard disk space
u A color monitor with at least 256 colors and 800x600 pixel
resolution
u A Macintosh-compatible pointing device
u A supported and correctly installed scanner, if you plan to scan
documents.
P erfo rman ce an d sp eed wil l be e nh anced if your computer’s processor,
memory and available disk space exceed minimum requirements.
t To install OmniPage Pro X:
12 Installation and setup
Installing the softw are
Insert the OmniPage Pro CD in the CD-ROM drive.
Double-click OmniPage Pro X Setup.
Select a language and then click Continue. This language will be
used for installation and also as the program’s interface language.
Read the license agreement. If you click I Agree, you can continue
installation.
Chapter 1
Personalize your copy in the dialog box that appears.
Type in your name, the name of your company and the serial
number. You will find the serial number on the CD case.
Click OK.
Click Install in the next dialog box to proceed. A further dialog
box lets you choose where the OmniPage Pro files will be
installed. Select a drive and optionally a folder location (using
Open or New) and click Choose. The program will be installed in a
folder named OmniPage Pro X. If you want to keep a previous
OmniPage version, install your new versio n to a different location.
All the program files will be copied to the chosen drive and
location. Some sub-folders will be created, including
Components, Help, Sample Files, Training Files, User
Dictionaries, User’s Guide, and Zone Templates.
Note
Under Mac OS 9 you may get a warning message if you have no CarbonLib
installed on your machine. In this case double-click the Carbo nLib Setup. The
required CarbonLib will be installed, the computer will then restart and the
OmniPage Pro installation will start automatically.
Running the program under Mac OS 9
This User ’s Guide and the onlin e help descr ibe the u se of the pr og ram
under the Mac OS X operating system. Some dialog boxes have a
slightly different appearance under Mac OS 9. Mac OS X supports an
Application menu: it includes Preferences... which is in the Edit menu
under Mac OS 9 and Quit which is in the File menu in Mac OS 9.
Online Help highlights all differences between Mac OS X and Mac
OS 9 with an OS 9 icon.
The Help menu under Mac OS 9 allows you to show or hide balloon
help. This relates to system-wide balloon help, which can appear
within OmniPage Pro X under OS 9.
Running the program under Mac OS 9 13
Starting OmniPage Pro
There are several ways of starting OmniPage Pro®:
u Open the OmniPage Pro X folder and double-click the OmniPage
Pro X icon.
The program launches and the OCR Toolbar will be displayed.
For quicker access, place an alias program icon on your Desktop.
u Drag and drop on e or more image files onto the OmniP a ge Pro X
icon.
The program launches and loads the dropped image files. It does
not immediately recognize them.
u Drag and drop an OmniPage Document icon onto the OmniPage
Pro X icon or double-click an OmniPage Document icon.
The program launches and opens the previously created
OmniPage Document. See page 56 and Saving an OmniPage
Document on page 61.
u Use the Direct OCR feature. See Direct OCR on page66.
14 Installation and setup
Selecting your scanner
Before you can select a scanner in OmniPage Pro X, its driver must
already be installed on your system. It should also be tested, to be sur e
it is working properly with the scanning software supplied by its
manufacturer. Consult the documentation supplied with your
scanner.
You can either let OmniPage Pro auto-detect your scanner or you can
select a scanner type manua lly in the Sel ect Scanner dial og box. If yo u
cannot find your scanner model in the scanner list in this dialog box,
OmniPage Pro allows you to select a driver from one of the two
Chapter 1
general scanner driver types supp orte d by the program. You can select
either a Photoshop plug-in or a TWAIN driver depending on your
scanner.
For specific scanner types which work with a TWAIN driver, you can
choose whether to use their own interface or use OmniPage Pro’s
interface. For scanners using a Photoshop plug-in driver, its interface
is always displayed while scanning.
Each scanner driver provides a different user interface, so the available
options may vary.
Tip
t To auto-select a scanner for OmniPage Pro:
Switch on your scanner and start OmniPage Pro.
Choose Preferences… from the App lication menu (M ac OS 9: Edit
See an overview table i n the online H elp topic Selecting a scanner. This summarizes
the user interface differences depending on which type of scanner driver is chosen.
menu) then click the Scanner icon to display the Scanner panel.
Click the Select… button to get the Select Scanner dialog box.
Click the Auto-Select Scanner button.
Click Verify to be sure the auto-detected scanner is correctly
configured.
If an auto-detected scanner has a TWAIN driver, you can select
the option Show TWAIN User Interface. For more detail see point
6 in the section To access a scanner through a TWAIN driver.
Click OK, then Save.
If OmniPage Pro cannot recognize your scanner automatically,
select it manually as described in the next section.
Selecting your scanner 15
t To select a scanner manually:
Follow instructions 1-3 listed above.
Select a scanner manufacturer under Manufacturer in the Select
Scanner dialog box.
Select a scanner model under Scanner.
Check the driver name under Driver. If you have more than one
driver, select the one you want to use.
Click Verify to be sure the selected scanner is correctly configured.
Click OK to close the Select Scanner dialog box.
Click Save in the Preferences dialog box.
If the displayed scanner l ist does n ot con tain the manufactur er or type
of your scanner, you have two more choices under Manufacturer
(Photoshop plug-in) and (TWAIN driver). To decide which of these
general scanner drivers your scanner supports, refer to the
documentation supplied with your scanner. See the next two sections
for more details on selecting (TWAIN driver) or (Photoshop plug-in).
t To access a scanner through a TWAIN driver:
16 Installation and setup
Tip
If you do not have a scanner at all, you can select (Test) under Manufacturer in the
Select Scanner dialog box to simulate scanning.
Follo w instructions 1-3 from the section To auto-select a scanner for
OmniPage Pro.
Select (TWAIN driver) under Manufacturer.
Select a driver name under Scanner.
Check that your scanner driver delivered by the manufacturer has
appeared under Driver and select it, if it is not already selected.
Click Verify to check the functioning of your scanner.
Decide which user interface you want to use for your scanner: the
driver’s own interface or OmniPage Pro’s interface. See the
overview table in the online Help topic Selecting a scanner which
summarizes the user interface functioning for different scanner
drivers.
• Select Show TWAIN User Interface if you want to use the user
interface of your scanner driver.
• Deselect Show TWAIN User Interface if you want to start
scanning from O mniP a ge P ro using the s canner sett ings in th e
Scanner panel of the OmniPage Pro Preferences dialog box.
Click OK to close the Select Scanner dialog box.
Click Save in the Preferences dialog box.
t To access a scanner through a Photoshop plug-in:
Copy your scanner driver from the Plug-Ins folder of the Adobe
Photoshop program to the OmniPage Pro X: Components:
Scanner Support: Plug-Ins folder.
Chapter 1
It is assumed that the scanner driver delivered by the manufacturer
has already been copied to the Adobe Photoshop program’s Plug-
Ins folder during scanner installation.
Follow instructions 1-3 from the section To auto-select a scanner for
OmniPage Pro.
Select (Photoshop plug-in) under Manufacturer.
Select the driver just copied unde r Scanner. Check the driver name
under Driver.
Click the Verify button if you want to display the info panels . Th e
driver’s info panel will appear first, then the Scanner Info panel.
Inspect and then close them.
Click OK to close the Select Scanner dialog box.
Click Save in the Preferences dialog box.
Selecting your scanner 17
t To scan in the Classic Environment:
• Select Scan in Classic Mode in the Select Scanner dialog box if
it is not already selected. Please wait while the program
compiles a scanner list.
This option enables you to scan pages even if your scanner has
a driver for Mac OS 9 only. If the option is selected, scanning
will be performed in the C las sic Environment. If the option is
deselected, scanning can only be performed with a scanner
driver developed for Mac OS X. The Scan in Classic Mode
option is not selectable under Mac OS 9.
Registering OmniPage Pro
ScanSoft’s registration Wizard runs at the end of installation. We
provide an ea sy ele ctroni c form that can be comple ted in le ss tha n five
minutes. You are asked to enter OmniPage Pro’s serial number, which
appears on a sticker on the CD sleeve.
When the form is filled and you click Send, the program will search an
Internet connection to immediately perform the registration online.
18 Installation and setup
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 on lin e. Cl ick 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.
Removing OmniPage Pro
Move or copy any files you want to keep from the OmniPage Pro X
folder. These might be settings, training, template, user dictiorary,
export or OmniPage Document files. Then drag the folder to the
Trash.
Chapter 2
Introduction
You probably do business correspondence and other written projects
on your computer. However, certain sources of information may not
be immediately available for use. For example, if you want to
incorporate part of a magazine article into a document in your word
processor, you somehow have to get its text into your computer.
Painstakingly retyping the article is not an appealing solution.
OmniPage Pro X offers a smart solution to in cr ea se y our productivity.
Its optical charact er r ecognition (OC R) techn ology accurately and easi ly
converts text from scanned p ages and image files into edi table form for
use in your favorite computer applications. You do not have to retype
whole texts — OmniPage Pro does it for you.
Please continue reading this chapter for information on these topics:
u What is Optical Character Recognition?
u Basic steps in the OCR process
u The OCR Toolbar
u The full OmniPage Pro interface
The OCR Toolbar is the control center for the program. The other
main working areas appear when a document is started:
u Thumbnail view: this displays small images of each page.
u Image view: this displays an image of the current page.
u Text view: this displays the recognition results of the current page.
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide 19
What is Optical Character Recognition?
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process of extracting text
from images. Images can result from scanning paper documents or
opening image files. Images do not have editable text characters; they
have many tiny dots (pixels) that together form character shapes.
These present a picture of the text on a page.
During OCR, OmniPage Pro analyzes the character shapes in an
image and determines character solutions to produce editable text. In
other words, the OCR program ‘reads’ the page.
After OCR, you can export the recognized text to a variety of wordprocessing, desktop publishing, and spreadsheet applications.
Beyond OCR
In addition to tex t, OmniP age P ro X can retain the foll owing elem ents
in a document after OCR for display and export.
t Graphics
Photos, logos and drawings are examples of graphics. The program
cannot recognize handwriting, but signatures can be saved as graphics.
20 Introduction
t Text formatting
Font types, sizes, and styles (such as bold or italic) are examples of
character formatting. Indents, tabs, margins and line spacing are
examples of paragraph formatting.
t Page formatting
Column structure, paragraph spacing, and placement of graphics are
examples of page formatting.
The elements that are retained depend on settings you select before
OCR and on the capabilities of the saving format you choose. See
chapter 4, Settings, for more information.
Chapter 2
Basic steps in the OCR process
There are three main steps in OmniPage Pro’s OCR process. They
correspond to three large numbered buttons in the OCR Toolbar.
Documents can be proces sed a uto matica lly or manua ll y. In automatic
processing, the Start button takes all specified document pages
through the whole process (1-2-3) without a stop. Processing is done
according to settings selected in pop-up menus on the OCR Toolbar
and in the P r efer en ces dial og bo x. I n ma nual pro cessi ng, ea ch st ep can
be performed separately and settings can be modified between each
step. The three basic steps are:
1. Acquire page images
Scan pages or load one or more image files. See page36. A
miniature image of each page appears in Thumbnail view, the
image of one page appears in Image view.
A layout description assists auto-zoning and a style set defines a
formatting level for the recognized pages. When processing
manually, zones should be drawn and styled at this point.
2. Per form OCR
Pages can be recognized with or without proofing. See page 51.
During recognition, zones are automatically created on all pages
without existing zones. On pages with zones, auto-zoning can be
requested. OmniPage Pro performs OCR on text zones and can
transfer graphics zones. Recognition results appear in Text view.
3. Export the document
The document can be saved to a specified file name and format, or
copied to Clipboard. The document remains open in OmniPage
Pro after its first export, allowing text to be further edited and
pages added or re-recognized with changed settings and zoning.
The document can be saved repeatedly, also to different saving
formats.
It can be saved as an OmniPage Document, allowing it to be
reopened later in OmniPage Pro X. See page 38, 56 and page 61.
See the topics Automatic processing and Manual processing at the
beginning of chapter 3.
Basic steps in the OCR process 21
The OCR Toolbar
The OCR Toolbar appears when you first start the program. It is the
control center for all document processing. The OCR Toolbar can be
minimized under Mac OS 9.
Start button: Use this to
start and re-start automatic
processing, and to stop any
processing.
Assistant button:
Guides you to select
settings and launches
automatic processing.
The status line reports the
current operation or the
operation you can do next.
Get Page
button
u The Start button lets you activate or re-activate automatic
Primary language
display
Get Page
pop-up menu
Original Layout
pop-up menu
Style Set
pop-up menu
OCR button Export button
OCR
pop-up menu
Export
pop-up menu
processing. When processing is in progress, it displays Stop.
u The Get Page, OCR and Export buttons are for manual processing.
They allow each step to be performed separately, as follows:
• The Get Page button lets yo u acquir e on e or mor e ima ges from
file or by scanning with the specified mode.
• The OCR button lets you send the current page to
recognition, or re-recognition, with or without proofing
automatically started. It also allows training to be done.
• The Export button lets you save results from all recognized
pages in the document to file or copy them to Clipboard.
u The five pop-up menus let you select options. Processing is done
according to the selected options. Before starting automatic
processing, you must ensure all these options are suitable.
u The current primary re cognition la nguage is dis played. Thr ee do ts
after the language name denote that at least one secondary
language is also selected.
22 Introduction
The full OmniPage Pro interface
The full OmniPage Pro X interface appears when you start a
document. The main screen areas of the interface are:
u The OCR Toolbar
u The Document window (with Image view and Text view)
u The Thumbnail window
u The Zone Info and Tools palettes
u The Preferences dialog box
Chapter 2
Thumbnail
window
The thumbnail
of the
currently
displayed
page has a
shaded
background.
These icons
indicate page
status.
Zone Info
palette
OCR Toolbar
Tools palette
Page
indicator
Image view
zoom factor
Document window
Image view
Text view zoom
factor
Drag this splitter to left or
right to resize the views.
The full OmniPage Pro int erface 23
Text view
The Document window
The Document window allows you to view and work with pages in
the current document. You can drag this window to different
locations. Original page images are displayed in Image view and
recognition results are displayed in Text view. A highlight-colored
border denotes which view is active. Click inside a view area to
activate it.
Both views have scroll bars if the current page cannot be fully
displayed. Click on the zoom control at the bottom left corner of a
view to change its zoom factor. Choose from fixed or variable values
(Zoom to Width and Zoom to View).
The splitter button at the bottom of the window lets you change the
amount of space available for each view. To hide Image view
completely, drag the splitter to t he left edge o f the D ocument win dow.
To restore Image view, drag it to the right.
The Document window can be minimized and restored. Closing the
document window closes the current document (with a warning if
unsaved changes exist).
24 Introduction
The Thumbnail window
The Thumbnail window appears vertically on the left of the desktop
to provide Thumbnail view. This displays numbered miniature
pictures (thumbnails) of all pages in the current document. You can
use thumbnails to move to other pages, reorder or delete pages. An
icon at the bottom right of a page indicates that the page has been
recognized.
You can import one or more images to a defined location inside a
document by drag-and-drop. You can also use a thumbnail to drag a
copy of a page image from a document to the Desktop, a file location
or into other applications.
The Thumbnail window has a scroll bar and can be dragged to other
locations. The window cannot be closed, under Mac OS 9 it can be
minimized.
See Working with documents on page 55 for more information on
using thumbnails for page operations.
The Zone Info and Tools palettes
The Zone Info and Tools palettes are displayed whenever Image view
is active. You can drag them to different locations. Under Mac OS 9,
they can be minimized and restored.
Use the Tools palette to draw
regular or irregular zones,
modify zones, apply a zone
template, reorder zones, erase
parts of the image, zoom in or
out on the image, handle table
zones, or rotate an image.
Hover the cursor over any button in the palettes to read a description
of its function in the status line at the base of the OCR Toolbar.
Chapter 2
See Drawing zones manually
on page 44 for guidance on
using each of these buttons.
Use the Zone Info palette to
select zone types, zone
contents, zone styles, and a
style set for the current page.
The style set True Page® lets you conserve the original page layout.
See Specifying zone types on
page 41 and
editing zone styles
for guidance on using these
buttons and pop-up menus.
Applying and
on page 91
The full OmniPage Pro int erface 25
Click each icon
to view and
select different
groups of
settings.
The Preferences dialog box
This dialog box is the central location for all OmniPage Pro settings
not accessible through the OCR Toolbar. To open it, choose
Preferences... in the Application menu (Mac OS 9: Edit menu).
The Preferences dialog box has four sections: Scanner, OCR, Spelling
and Miscellaneous. Each section can be displayed by clicking its icon
on the left.
26 Introduction
Guidance on sele cting settings in each section i s prov ided in chapter 4.
You can save your set of preference settings to a Settings file, as
described on page 102.
Note
Online Help has a Quick Start Guide. This provides step-by-step instructions for
reading a sample image file supplied with the program. The resulting document
can be viewed in a target application and serves as a benchmark. You should be
able to get similar accuracy from comparable documents of your own.
Chapter 3
Processing documents
This chapter describes how to process documents in OmniPage Pro
from start to finish. It tells you ho w the basic steps of OCR ar e linked
during automatic and manual processing. It explains how you can
exploit the advantages of each type of processing within a single
document. The chapter also provides instructions for pe rforming each
OCR step and for other tasks you can do with your documents.
Please continue reading this chapter for information on these topics:
u Basic processing steps
u Automatic processing
u Manual processing
u Using automatic and manual processing together
u Using the OCR Assistant
u Bringing page images into OmniPage Pro
u Creating and modifying zones
u Performing recognition
u Working with documents
u Exporting documents
u Direct OCR
OmniPage Pro X User’s Guide 27
Basic processing steps
The following diagram summarizes how the basic steps are linked, and
directs you to a page in this Guide. This workflow is broadly valid for
both automatic and manual processing. The steps performed by the
three basic OCR Toolbar buttons have a darker border.
Get
Pages
page 36
Start
button
Define
a Style
Set
page 87
Describe
page
layout
page 72
Apply a
template
page 96
Create zones:
automatically
page 40
manually
page 44
Perform
OCR
page 50
Proof
page
51
Export
results
page 61
Automatic processing
You can use the Start button to process a new document from start to
finish or to finish processing an open document. The operations that
occur when you click Start depend on the options selected in the
OCR Toolbar’s pop-up menus.
28 Processing documents
For exa mple, O mniPage Pro can scan a st ack of page s fr om a scann er ’s
automatic document feeder (ADF), create zones on all pages,
recognize the pages, offer the results for proofing, and then let you
save the recognition results to file.
During automatic processing, auto-zoning always runs, unless you
specify a zone template file. If you want to draw or modify zones
manually, you can do this after recognition and first export are
finished, and then re-recognize those pages afterwards.
To prepar e fo r automatic process ing
1. Select the source for one or more page images.
Choose Load image to open one or more page images from file.
Choose Scan in B&W to scan in black-and-white.
Choose Scan in Gray to scan in grayscale.
Choose Scan in Color to scan in color (with a color scanner).
See Bringing page images into OmniPage Pro on page36 and Get
Page options on page 70 for information on these choices.
2. Select a style set.
Choose a style set to define the formatting level and page layout
you want applied to the recognition results.
See page 72 and page 73 for information on these choices.
3. Select a page layout description.
Choose a page layout description to influence the auto-zoning.
Choose from Single Column, Multiple Column, Spreadsheet or
Mixed Pages. Or choose a zone template if you have one.
4. Select the type of recognition you want.
Choose Perform OCR to have recognition without proofing. You
can still proof the text later, after its first export. See from pag e50.
Choose OCR & Proof to have proofing started as soon as all pages
are recognized. See page 51.
Chapter 3
5. Select an export target for the document.
You can direct your document to be saved to a file whose name,
location and type you define, or have the recognition results
copied to the Clipboard. See page 64.
6. Ensure all other settings are in order.
Further settings are located in the Preferences dialog box (see
chapter 4). These include recognition languages, user dictionaries
and scanner settings. If you are scanning, place your page(s)
correctly in the scanner. To scan multiple pages from an ADF,
select Scan Until Empty in the Scanner Panel of the Preferences
dialog box.
7. Click the Start button to launch automatic processing.
Automatic processing proceeds as described in the next topic.
Automatic processing 29
To process a new document automatically
We assume you have started OmniPage Pro X and can see the OCR
Toolbar, but you have no document open and all settings are ready.
1. Click the Start button to launch automatic processing.
2. All specified pages are scanned or the Load Images dialog box lets
you select image file s. The status li ne reports pro gress as i mages are
acquired. Page images appear briefly in Image view.
3. A miniature image of each page appears in Thumbnai l view as it is
acquired. Image view displays each page; when all pages are
acquired, it displays the first acquired page.
4. Recognition starts; a progress monitor appears in the OCR
Toolbar status line. Automatic or template zoning is done, text is
detected and recognized on one page after the other.
5. The first image appears again in Image view with zones. Its
recognition results appear in Text view.
6. If proofing was requested, it starts from the top of the first page.
Make corrections as desired. Click in Text view to interrupt
proofing. Then you can edit or verify the recognized text, move t o
other pages or change settings. The proofreading button Ignore
becomes Start. Click this to resume proofreading. Click Done to
finish proofing before the end of the document.
30 Processing documents
7. The Export dialog box ap pears if you chose e xport to file. De fine a
folder, file name and saving format, and choose other export
options. If you chose Save and Launch, t he r eco gn iti on results will
appear in the targe t a pplica tio n. I f y ou ch os e e xport to Cl ipbo ard,
a message tells you when the r eco gn iti on re sul ts ha ve be en pla ced.
The document rema ins open in Omni P age P ro for furth er editing.
Pages can be re-recognized with changed zoning or settings. New
pages can be added. The document can be saved repeatedly.
During processing, the Start button becomes a Stop button. Click it to
stop processing. The current processing step is discarded but the
results of all completed steps remain. For example, if you click Stop
during OCR, there will be no recognized text but the image remains.
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