Nuance ScanSoft OmniPage Pro - 18.0 User’s Guide

User’s Guide

LEGAL NOTICES

Copyright © 2011 Nuance Communications, 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 Nuance Communications, Inc., 1 Wayside Road, Burlington, Massachusetts 01803-4609.

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.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Nuance Communications, 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. Nuance reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes from time to time in the content hereof without obligation of Nuance to notify any person of such revision or changes.

TRADEMARKS AND CREDITS

Nuance, ScanSoft, OmniPage, PaperPort, True Page, Direct OCR, Logical Form Recognition, RealSpeak are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc., in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the trademarks of their respective holders.

THIRD PARTY LICENSES/NOTICES

Please see acknowledgements/notices at the end of this guide.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

1 Wayside Road

Burlington, MA 01803-4609

U.S.A.

Nuance Communications International BVBA

International Headquarters

Guldensporenpark 32

Building D

BE-9820 Merelbeke

Belgium

C O N T E N T S

WELCOME	5
New features in OmniPage 18	7
New features in OmniPage 17	8
Key features in OmniPage Professional	10

INSTALLATION AND SETUP	11
System requirements	11
Installing OmniPage	12
Setting up your scanner with OmniPage	13
How to start the program	14
Registering your software	15
Activating OmniPage	16
Uninstalling the software	16

USING OMNIPAGE	17
OmniPage Documents	17
The OmniPage Desktop and Views	18
	24
Basic Processing Steps	24
How to use OmniPage with PaperPort	25

PROCESSING DOCUMENTS	26
Processing methods	26
Defining the source of page imagesFigure	29
Describing the layout of the document	34
Preprocessing Images	35
Zones and backgrounds	43

PROOFING AND EDITING	50
The editor display and formatting levels	50
Proofreading OCR results	51
Verifying text	52
The Character Map	52
User dictionaries	53
Languages	53
Training	56
Text and image editing	57
On-the-fly editing	59
Marking and redacting	60
Reading text aloud	60
Creating and editing forms	61

OmniPage 18 User’s Guide

3

SAVING AND EXPORTING	65
Saving and Exporting	65
Saving original images	65
Saving recognition results	66
Sending pages by mail	71
Sending to Kindle	71
Other export targets	73

WORKFLOWS	74
Workflow Assistant	76
Batch Manager	78
Creating new jobs	78
Watched folders	82
Watched mailboxes	83
Barcode processing	83
File-it Assistant	85

TECHNICAL INFORMATION	86
Troubleshooting	86
Supported file types	89
INDEX	90

OmniPage 18 User’s Guide

4

Welcome

Welcome to this OmniPage® 18 text recognition program, and thank you for choosing our software! The following documentation has been provided to help you get started and give you an overview of the program.

This User’s Guide

This guide introduces you to using OmniPage 18. It includes installation and setup instructions, a description of the program’s commands and working areas, task-oriented instructions, ways to customize and control processing, and technical information. Descriptions are based on the Windows 7TM operating system.

In line with Nuance’s environmental policy, the Guide is supplied as a PDF file only. To have a printed copy on normal sized paper, we recommend double-sided printing with two pages per sheet.

This guide is written with the assumption that you know how to work in the Microsoft Windows environment. Please refer to your Windows documentation if you have questions about how to use dialog boxes, menu commands, scroll bars, drag and drop functionality, shortcut menus, and so on.

We also assume you are familiar with your scanner and its supporting software, and that the scanner is installed and working correctly before it is setup with OmniPage 18. Please refer to the scanner’s own documentation as necessary.

How-to-Guides

The How-to-Guides can be accessed from the Help menu. They are a series of mini-guides that help you get started easily by providing concise overviews of key program areas, such as getting input, image improvement, zoning, recognition, editing, proofreading, new features, and the like.

Welcome

5

Electronic Help

OmniPage Help contains information on features, settings, and procedures. It also has a comprehensive glossary, with its own alphabetical index and a table of contents. The HTML help system has been designed for quick and easy information

retrieval. Help is available after you install OmniPage.

Comprehensive context-sensitive help aims to provide just enough assistance to let you keep working without delay. It is available from dialog boxes. Press F1 in any dialog box to access it, or click the help button if the dialog box has one.

Readme File

The Readme file contains last-minute information about the software. Please read it before using OmniPage. To open this HTML file, choose Readme in the OmniPage Installer or afterwards in the Help menu.

Scanning and other information

The Nuance® web site at www.nuance.com provides timely information on the program. The Scanner Guide (http://www.nuance.com/scannerguide/) contains up-dated information about supported scanners and related issues; Nuance tests the 25 most widely used scanner models. Access Nuance’s web site from the OmniPage 18 Installer or afterwards from the Help menu.

Tech Notes

The web site at www.nuance.com contains Tech Notes on commonly reported issues using OmniPage. Web pages may also offer assistance on the installation process and troubleshooting.

Welcome

6

New features in OmniPage 18

If you are upgrading from version 17, you benefit from the following innovations. Click the links to for more information.

•Start Page: When OmniPage opens it presents clear options to open or scan documents, open OmniPage Project Documents and provides pre-programmed workflows to take your documents from one format to another in one easy step.

•eDiscovery Assistant for searchable PDF: This process is specially designed to create Searchable PDF files from image-only PDF files or files that may already contain some text elements or text pages without altering or applying an OCR process to existing text. All text-based elements in a PDF remain untouched including document metadata, annotations, mark-up, stamps and more. The process can run automatically or with interaction for zoning or proofing. See “eDiscovery Assistant for searchable PDF” on page 70.

•Connect to the Cloud: Download input files from web storage sites and return recognition results there. OmniPage provides native integration with Evernote and Dropbox. In addition, the included Nuance Cloud Connector application provides access to a number of cloud services including Microsoft Live SkyDrive, GoogleDocs, Box.net, FTP sites, and many more. The added benefit of the Nuance Cloud Connector is its ability to integrate directly with Microsoft Windows providing easy drag-and-drop access directly to cloud services. The Nuance Cloud Connector is also upgradeable to a more feature rich version of the product called Gladinet Cloud Desktop Pro. This enhanced version adds additional functionality for using cloud services for automatic backup and file synchronization. See “Input from the Cloud” on page 30 and “Other export targets” on page 73.

•New image enhancement (SET) tools: The algorithms for removing speckles and dots from page images for increased word accuracy are improved, with a choice of despeckling methods (Normal, Halftone, Salt & Pepper). Auto-crop pages to have margins detected and reduced; the punch hole remover and border tools produce clean page borders without scanning shadows and marginal notes. When whiteboard content is captured by digital camera, the text and diagrams can be enhanced for maximum readability. See “Image Enhancement Tools” on page 37

Welcome

New features in OmniPage 18

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•Better control over determining blank pages: A new sensitivity setting increases the accuracy of detecting blank pages that may scan as light gray or colored pages by allowing the threshold for blankness to be adjusted. This improves the use of two controls within OmniPage: the new pre-processing option 'Drop blank pages' and the existing saving option 'Create a new file at each blank page'.

•Automatic language detection: Let the program assign a single language for OCR to each incoming page during unattended processing. See “Asian language recognition” on page 54.

•Accept proofing suggestions by shortcuts: Suggestions in the Proofreader are numbered. As an alternative to clicking a suggestion to select it and Change to accept it, hold down the Ctrl key and enter the suggestion number. See “Proofing and editing” on page 47.

•ISIS scanners: Scanners that support ISIS drivers can be used to scan directly into OmniPage.

New features in OmniPage 17

If you are upgrading from version 16, you benefit from the following innovations. Click the links to for more information.

•Asian recognition: OCR services are provided for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, with support for both horizontal and vertical text flow and embedded English texts. Results can be viewed and verified in the Text Editor. See “Asian language recognition” on page 54.

•Vertical non-Asian texts: Auto-detection of vertical texts in two rotations functions inside table cells and anywhere on PDF or XPS pages, and in certain cases on other image file types. Tools allow vertical text zones to be drawn manually. Texts display vertically and can be edited in the Text Editor, using the True Page® formatting level. In other levels the texts are displayed horizontally. See “Automatic zoning” on page 43. and See “Zone types and properties” on page 44.

•Easy Loader: This provides a Windows Explorer-like display of the file system in one of the OmniPage windows, to keep files visible during your work and deliver full Explorer functionality, yielding quick file selections; a dialog box with a lock facility

Welcome

New features in OmniPage 17

8

lets a file set be built up before loading starts. With Quick Convert View it allows not only fast file loading but also 'one-click' total processing: load > recognize > save. See “Input via Easy Loader” on page 30.

•Expanded ECM support: Links are available to Hummingbird (OpenText) and iManage (Interwoven). When using SharePoint, the server, login and password information must be provided only once per session, and is offered in each subsequent session.

•Support for Office 2007 and 2010: The Direct OCR buttons appear on a separate Nuance OCR tab instead of being mixed with all other Add-Ins.

•More robust batch processing: The Batch Manager automatically skips files that cannot be processed – including those blocked by password requirements – without stopping the main flow of work. The Job results window indicates which files were not processed.

•Running: The program’s launch speed is increased and performance is considerably improved on multi-core computers. Support for quad-core machines is introduced.

•Linking workflows to scanner buttons: OmniPage functions and workflows can be associated with scanner buttons, so the whole pre-processing, recognition and storage of documents can be launched from the scanner. See “Scanning to OmniPage and workflows” on page 33.

•Output to Kindle: The Kindle Assistant lets you create workflows to send recognition results to a Kindle account at Amazon and receive them displayed on a Kindle device registered with that account. See “Sending to Kindle” on page 71.

•Other improvements: Advances to image pre-processing provide better layout retention and overall accuracy – particularly in XPS files and document-to-document conversions. HD photo (JPEG XR) image loading is supported. Integration with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint is enhanced. Linearized PDF files can be created, so they are optimized for faster web viewing.

Welcome

New features in OmniPage 17

9

Key features in OmniPage Professional

This icon is used throughout the guide to denote features that are available only in OmniPage Professional 18.

•Extracting data from filled forms: A workflow step allows data to be extracted from sets of forms and exported to databases, based on a PDF form template. The forms can be active PDF forms, static forms in a range of image formats or scanned paper forms.

•Marking and redacting: Text can be highlighted, struckout or redacted (made unreadable) in the Text Editor. Redacting is useful for legal documents or for those with confidential content.

•File-it Assistant: A more efficient aid for creating and using barcode cover page workflows. These allow for automatic processing and storage of documents driven by the push of just one scanner button.

A more complete list of features, and the differences between various OmniPage versions appears in Help.

OmniPage 18 is supplied in Enterprise versions for network use. It is also supplied in Special Editions for selected scanner manufacturers and other resellers. The feature set in these editions may vary, in line with each vendor's requirements.

Welcome

Key features in OmniPage Professional

10

Installation and setup

This chapter provides information on installing and starting OmniPage.

System requirements

The minimum requirements to install and run OmniPage 18 are:

•A computer with a 1 GHz Intel® Pentium® processor or higher, or equivalent. Dual-core or Quad-core support recommended.

•Microsoft Windows® XPTM 32-bit (SP3) with 400 MHz processor, or Windows® VistaTM 32-bit (SP2) or Windows® VistaTM 64-bit (SP2) or Microsoft Windows® 7TM (32-bit and 64-bit) with a 1 GHz processor.

•512MB of memory (RAM), 1GB recommended for advanced performance.

•250MB of free hard disk space for application and sample images plus 100MB working space during installation. Additionally:

•230MB for all Nuance RealSpeak® modules (90MB for RealSpeak® Solo American English language module, additional 10-15MB per RealSpeak Solo other language modules)

•30MB for the Nuance Cloud Connector

•150MB for Nuance PDF Create (Supplied with OmniPage Professional only).

•500MB for PaperPort® (Supplied with OmniPage Professional only).

•1024x768 pixel color monitor with 16-bit color or greater video card.

•A CD-ROM drive for installation or web access suitable for download.

•A sound card and speaker for reading text aloud.

•A Windows compatible pointing device.

•2-megapixel digital camera or higher, with auto-focus, for digital camera text capture. See Help for details.

•A compatible scanner with its own scanner driver software for scanning documents (WIA, TWAIN, or ISIS scanner driver). See the Scanner Guide at Nuance’s web site (www.nuance.com) for a list of supported scanners.

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•Web access needed for online Activation, Registration, Live Update, Nuance Cloud Connectors, and Scanner Wizard database updating.

•East Asian language handling must be installed in the operating system to view Japanese, Chinese or Korean documents. (Control Panel / Regional and Language Options).

Installing OmniPage

OmniPage 18’s installation program takes you through installation with instructions on every screen.

Before installing OmniPage:

•Close all other applications, especially anti-virus programs.

•Log into your computer with administrator privileges.

•If you own a previous version of OmniPage, or if you are upgrading from demonstration software or an OmniPage Special Edition, you must uninstall that product first.

To install OmniPage:

1.Download the program file and choose Run when the download is completed, or insert the OmniPage CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive. The installation program should start automatically. If it does not start, locate your CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer and double-click the Autorun.exe program at the top-level of the CD-ROM.

2.Choose a language to use during installation. Accept the End-User License Agreement and enter the serial number you receive by e-mail or find on the CD envelope.

3.Choose a complete or a custom installation. A complete installation installs all RealSpeak® Text-to-Speech language modules (currently 9). Custom installation lets you exclude or add modules. To exclude a module, click its down arrow and select ‘This feature will not be available’.

4.Follow the instructions on each screen to install the software. All files needed for scanning are copied automatically during installation.

Unless deselcted in the OmniPage Professional installation, Nuance PDF Create 7 installation starts as soon the installation of OmniPage is completed. Document-to-document conversions depend on PDF Create being present.

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Installing OmniPage

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OmniPage Professional is supplied with a complimentary copy of the Nuance PaperPort® document management product. This must be installed separately and has its own system requirements.

Setting up your scanner with OmniPage

All files needed for scanner setup and support are copied automatically during the program’s installation, but no scanner setup occurs at installation time. Before using OmniPage for scanning, your scanner should be installed with its own scanner driver software and tested for correct functionality. Scanner driver software is not included with OmniPage.

Scanner setup is done through the Scanner Setup Wizard. You can start this yourself, as described below. Otherwise, it appears when you first attempt to perform scanning. Proceed as follows:

•Choose Start > All Programs > Nuance > OmniPage 18 > Scanner Setup Wizard

or click the Setup button in the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box.

or choose Scan in the Get Page drop-down list in the OmniPage Toolbox and click the Get Page button.

•The Scanner Setup Wizard starts. If you have a web connection, the first panel invites you to update the scanner database supplied with the wizard. Choose Yes or No and click on Next.

•Choose ‘Select and test scanner or digital camera’, then click Next. If you have a single installed scanner, it appears, along with any scanners previously set up with OmniPage. If the required scanner is not listed, click Add Scanner... .

•You see a list of all detected scanner drivers in the checkmarked categories. This can include network devices. Select one and click OK. To install a second device, you must run the Scanner Wizard again.

•The wizard reports whether the chosen scanner model already has settings in the scanner database. If it does, you do not need to test it. If it does not, you should test it. Click on Next.

•If you chose not to test, click Finish. If you chose testing, click Next to have the scanner connection tested. If the connection is in order, you see a menu of further tests. Choose which testing steps you want to run. The Basic test scan is recommended.

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Setting up your scanner with OmniPage

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•By default OmniPage uses its own scanning interface, located in the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box. If you want to use your scanner’s own interface instead, choose Advanced settings... and select this. Click Hint editor... and choose Edit hints... only if you are experienced in configuring scanners or have been advised by Technical Support to do so.

•Click Next to start the tests. For the Basic scan test, insert a test page into your scanner. The wizard will scan using your scanner manufacturer’s software. Click on Next. Your scanner’s native user-interface will appear.

•Click on Scan to begin the sample scan.

•If necessary, click on Missing Image… or Improper Orientation... and make the appropriate selections.

•Once the image appears correctly in the window, click on Next.

•Move through the remaining requested tests, following the instructions on the screen.

•When all the requested tests have been completed successfully, the Scanner Wizard reports and invites you to click on Finish.

•You have successfully configured your scanner to work with OmniPage 18!

To change the scanner settings at a later time, or to setup or remove a scanner, reopen the Scanner Setup Wizard from the Windows Start menu or from the Scanner panel of the Options dialog box.

To test and repair an improperly functioning scanner, open the wizard and select ‘Test the current scanner or digital camera’ in the second panel, then work through the procedure described above, maybe using advice received from Technical Support.

To specify a different default scanner, open the wizard to reach the list of setup scanners. Move the highlight to the desired scanner and be sure to close the wizard with Finish.

To get updated settings for your current scanner, open the wizard, request a fresh database download in the first screen, then choose ‘Use current settings with current device’, click Next and then Finish.

How to start the program

To start OmniPage 18 do one of the following:

•Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose All Programs > Nuance > OmniPage 18

>OmniPage [Professional] 18.

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How to start the program

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• Double-click the OmniPage icon in the program’s installation folder or on the Windows desktop if placed there.

•Double-click an OmniPage Document (OPD) icon or file name; the clicked document is loaded into the program. See “OmniPage Documents” in the next chapter.

•Right-click one or more image file icons or file names for a shortcut menu. Select Open With... OmniPage application. The images are loaded into the program.

On opening, OmniPage’s title screen is displayed and then a view selection panel. OmniPage has three basic view types. For details, see The OmniPage Desktop and Views in the next chapter. It provides an introduction to the program’s main working areas.

There are several ways of running the program with a limited interface:

•Use the Batch Manager program. Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose All Programs > Nuance > OmniPage 18 > OmniPage Batch Manager. See the Workflows chapter.

•Click Acquire Text from the File menu of an application registered with the Direct OCR™ facility. See “How to set up Direct OCR” in the Processing Documents chapter.

•Right-click on one or more image file icons or file names in Wndows Explorer for a shortcut menu. Select OmniPage 18 and choose a target format, or the Convert Now Wizard or a workflow from its sub-menu. The files will be processed according to the workflow instructions. See the Workflows chapter.

• Click the OmniPage Agent icon	on the taskbar. Choose a workflow to start the
program and run the workflow.

•Use OmniPage 18 with Nuance’s PaperPort document management product, to add OCR services. See “How to use OmniPage with PaperPort” in the Using OmniPage chapter.

Registering your software

Nuance’s online registration runs at the end of installation. Please ensure web access is available. We provide an easy electronic form that can be completed in less than five minutes. When the form is filled, click Submit. If you did not register the software during installation, you will be periodically invited to register later. You can go to www.nuance.com to register online. Click on Support and from the main support screen choose Register in the left-hand column. For a statement on the use of your registration data, please see Nuance’s Privacy Policy.

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Registering your software

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Activating OmniPage

You will be invited to activate the product at the end of installation. Please ensure that web access is available. Provided your serial number is found at its storage location and has been correctly entered, no user interaction is required and no personal information is transmitted. If you do not activate the product at installation time, you will be invited to do this each time you invoke the program. OmniPage 18 can be launched only a limited number of times without activation. We recommend Automatic Activation.

Uninstalling the software

Sometimes uninstalling and then reinstalling OmniPage will solve a problem. The OmniPage Uninstall program will not remove files containing recognition results or any of the following user-created files:

Zone templates (*.zon)

Image enhancement templates (*.ipp) Training files (*.otn)

User dictionaries (*.ud) OmniPage Documents (*.opd) Job files (*.opj)

Workflow files (*.xwf)

To uninstall you must be logged into your computer with administrator privileges. To uninstall or reinstall OmniPage:

•Close OmniPage.

•Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose the Control Panel and then Uninstall a program (in earlier Windows versions: Add/Remove Programs).

•Select OmniPage and click Uninstall (in earlier Windows versions: Remove).

•Click Yes in the dialog box that appears to confirm removal.

•Select Yes to restart your computer immediately, or No if you plan to restart later.

•Follow instructions until the process is finished.

When you uninstall OmniPage, the link to your scanner is also uninstalled. You must setup your

scanner again with OmniPage if you reinstall the program. All RealSpeak® modules that were installed with the program will also be uninstalled. With OmniPage 18 Professional, Nuance PDF Create 7 and PaperPort must be uninstalled separately.

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Activating OmniPage

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Using OmniPage

OmniPage 18 uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to transform text from scanned pages or image files into editable text for use in your favorite computer applications.

In addition to text recognition, OmniPage can retain the following elements and attributes of a document through the OCR process.

Graphics (photos, logos)

Form elements (checkboxes, radio buttons, text fields) Text formatting (character and paragraph)

Page formatting (column structures, table formats, headings, placing of graphics)

Documents in OmniPage

A document in OmniPage consists of one image for each document page. After you perform OCR, the document will also contain recognized text, displayed in the Text Editor, possibly along with graphics, tables and form elements.

OmniPage Documents

An OmniPage Document (.opd) contains the original page images (optionally preprocessed) with any zones placed on them. After recognition, the OPD also contains the recognition results.

An OmniPage Document can contain an embedded user dictionary, training file, zone template file, or an image enhancement template file. This can increase file size considerably but makes the OPD more portable. To embed a file, open the relevant dialog box from the Tools menu, select the desired file and click Embed. Use the Extract button to get a local copy of an embedded file inside an OPD you have received.

When you open an OmniPage Document, its settings are applied, replacing those existing in the program.

Chapter 2

OmniPage Documents

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The OmniPage Desktop and Views

OmniPage comes with three different views to suit your task.

•Classic View - This view has a similar look and feel to previous versions of OmniPage.

•Flexible View - This view provides an alternate layout of the OmniPage function panels stacked in a tabbed view to give each panel more space.

•Quick Convert View - This view is designed for quick and easy document conversion without having to learn a lot. The most important conversion options are clearly visible on one screen.

Use the Window menu to switch between views and to save your own custom view (see later). On starting a new session you receive the view and screen arrangement that was in force when the program was last closed.

All three views can be reset to default values using ‘Reset Current View’ in the Windows menu.

Program Panels

OmniPage has a set of panels that can be docked (tabbed or tiled), floated, resized, minimized and restored separately. These include: Thumbnails, Page Image, Text Editor, Document Manager, Easy Loader, Workflow Status, and Help. To float a panel double-click its title bar or tab. To restore the floating panel to its previous docked position, double-click its title bar. To dock it to a new location, drag it to that location. A colored rectangle shows the docking position - release the mouse button to dock it. To see all possible docking positions one after the other (tiles and tabs), drag the panel over the OmniPage main window, holding down the left mouse button and pressing the spacebar repeatedly. When the desired location is indicated by coloring, release the mouse button. To move a floating panel without docking displays, keep CTRL pushed while dragging.

Classic View

In Classic View, the default OmniPage Desktop has four main tiled working areas, separated by splitters: the Document Manager, the Page Image, Thumbnails and the Text Editor. The Page Image has an Image toolbar and the Text Editor has a Formatting toolbar.

Chapter 2

The OmniPage Desktop and Views

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	Standard	Formatting toolbar
OmniPage	Toolbar
Toolbox

Thumbnails

Image
toolbar	Document			Page	Image
					Text Editor
	Manager
		Status bar

OmniPage toolbox: This Toolbox lets you drive the processing. Thumbnails panel: This displays page thumbnails.

Document Manager: This provides an overview of your document with a table. Each row represents one page. Columns present statistical or status information for each page, and (where appropriate) document totals.

Page Image: This displays the image of the current page with its zones. When a page is displayed, the Image toolbar is available.

Text Editor: Displays recognition results from the current page.

Panels can be re-arranged freely - horizontally or vertically; use the Window menu to open the Easy Loader, Workflow Status or Help panels. Panels can be minimized or closed, but not tabbed. To restore the default Classic View appearance, choose Reset Current View in the Window menu.

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The OmniPage Desktop and Views

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Flexible View

Use this view to set up the OmniPage workspace so that it fits your task optimally. By default all panels appear. There are five tabs: Page Image (including Thumbnails), Text Editor, Easy Loader, Workflow Status and Help. The Document Manager appears in a horizontal panel at the base of the working area. You can undock, move, minimize, group or close panels as already described. Drag a tab onto the working area to convert it to a Classic-type tiled panel. Drag it back to the tab bar to revert to a tabbed panel, or use the Spacebar as already described. If panels are grouped, the tab name shows the active one. To restore the default Flexible View appearance, choose Reset Current View in the Window menu.

Easy Loader provides a Windows Explorer type file listing and functionality that can remain open during the session, allowing quick file selection and assembly (see Chapter 4, page 30).

Suggested scenarios:

Maximizing workspace (single screen)

Load a document. Open the panels you want to use. Grab them by their captions one by one, and drag them so that they dock beside the active one as tabs. You can also dock Help to avoid handling two separate

windows.

Working with recognition results (single screen)

Load a document and have it recognized. Close all panels except the Document Manager and the Text Editor. Maximize both horizontally, scale down the Document Manager and dock it to the top or bottom.

You can now step through the pages double-clicking them one by one in the Document Manager, inspecting recognition results in the Text Editor. The number of suspect words and reject characters in the Document Manager will help you identify problematic pages.

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The OmniPage Desktop and Views

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Handling large documents (dual-screen)

Load the document you want to work on. Move its Thumbnail View to your second monitor and maximize it for a large scale overview of your document and far more space for thumbnail operations.

Verifying (dual-screen)

Place the Page Image on one screen and the Text Editor on the other. This gives you more space for editing and proofing.

The Page Image is always available for verifying recognition and for performing on-the-fly zoning and editing.

The scenarios presented above are only examples to give you an idea of what you can do in Flexible View.

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The OmniPage Desktop and Views

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Quick Convert View

Use the Quick Convert View for fast recognition and saving. You can switch to Quick View only when you have no opened document and it can handle only one input file and one output document at a time. The picture shows the default appearance.

Processing

buttons

Quick

Convert Options on toggled tab with Easy Loader

Quick Convert Options: document source and layout

output text format, formatting level output folder and file name

saving options page range

Page Image panel title

Quick Convert toolbar

Page Image

The Easy Loader is by default on a tab that toggles with the Quick Convert Options panel. A Help panel can be added, but further panels are not available in this view. You can change tabs to separate panels and minimize them, as in other views.

After loading a file, you should convert it before loading the next file. When an image conversion is finished, you do not need to explicitly close the image; just load a new file.

The Easy Loader in Quick View provides an additional feature: ‘one-click’ processing. Choose the Easy Loader sub-menu in the Process menu and choose either Load Files or Get and Convert. When the latter is chosen, multiple files can be selected – these files are loaded, recognized and saved using the current settings. For this, set the output file names to be the same as the source file names. See Chapter 4, page 30 and Help for detail.

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The OmniPage Desktop and Views

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The Quick View Page Image panel includes the Quick Convert toolbar, offering the most useful image handling operations. To access advanced functionality, such as image file saving, SET tools, on-the-fly zoning, zone reordering and manual zone drawing for vertical text, a different view should be used.

Custom views

For a custom view, arrange the panels and toolbars as you wish, then choose Window > Custom Views > Manage. Click Add and name your view. Your screen layouts will be displayed in the Custom Views submenu with a checkmark beside the active one. Resetting to a default is not available for custom views.

Changing views

Use the Window menu to change views. Panels are shown or hidden and arranged as they were when the chosen view was last used. The Help topic on display remains unchanged regardless of view. Easy Loader retains its file location regardless of view and the Workflow Status continues to display information on the last workflow run. On program restart, Help displays the Welcome topic, Easy Loader the default folder location and Workflow status is empty.

The Toolbars

The program has eleven main toolbars. Use the View menu to show, hide or customize them. Status bar texts at the bottom edge of the OmniPage program window explain the purpose of all tools.

Standard toolbar: Performs basic functions.

Image toolbar: Performs image, zoning and table operations. Three of its tool groups can now be handled separately (mini-toolbars):

•Zones toolbar: Offers zoning tools.

•Rotate toolbar: Provides rotating tools.

•Table toolbar: Inserts, moves and removes row and column dividers. Formatting toolbar: Formats recognized text in the Text Editor.

Verifier toolbar: Controls the location and appearance of the verifier. Reorder toolbar: Modifies the order of elements in recognized pages. Mark Text toolbar: Performs text marking and redacting.

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Form Drawing toolbar: Creates new form elements.

Form Arrangement toolbar: Arranges and aligns form elements.

All toolbars can be moved and customized in each view to your particular needs, including use of a secondary monitor.

The Form toolbars and the Mark Text toolbar (for details see Chapter 4, page 60) appear only in OmniPage Professional 18.

Basic Processing Steps

There are three ways of handling documents: with automatic, manual or workflow processing. The basic steps for all processing methods are broadly the same:

1.Bring a set of images into OmniPage. You can scan a paper document with or without an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) or load one or more image files from your file system, storage sites in the Cloud, FTP and more.

2.Perform OCR to generate editable text. After OCR, you can check and correct errors in the document using the OCR Proofreader and edit the document in the Text Editor.

3.Export the document to the desired location. You can save your document to a specified file name and type, place it on the Clipboard, send it as a mail attachment or publish it. You can save the same document repeatedly to different destinations, different file types, with different settings and levels of formatting.

Using OmniPage, you can choose from the following processing methods: Automatic, Manual, Combined, or Workflow. You can start recognition from other applications, using Direct OCR and can also schedule processing to run at a later time.

Processing methods are detailed in the next chapter and in Help.

Settings

The Options dialog box is the central location for OmniPage settings. Access it from the Standard toolbar or the Tools menu. Context-sensitive help provides information on each setting.

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How to use OmniPage with PaperPort

The PaperPort® program is a paper management software product from Nuance. It lets you link pages with suitable applications. Pages can contain pictures, text or both. If PaperPort exists on a computer with OmniPage, its OCR services become available and amplify the power of PaperPort. You can choose an OCR program by right-clicking on a text application’s PaperPort link, selecting Preferences and then selecting OmniPage 18 as the OCR package. OCR settings can be specified, as with Direct OCR.

PaperPort provides the easiest way to turn paper into organized digital documents that everybody in an office can quickly find and use. PaperPort works with scanners, multifunction printers, and networked

digital copiers to turn paper documents into digital documents. It then helps you to manage them along with all other electronic documents in one convenient and easy-to-use filing system.

PaperPort’s large, clear item thumbnails allow you to visually organize, retrieve and use your scanned documents, including Word files, spreadsheets, PDF files and even digital photos. PaperPort’s Scanner Enhancement Technology tools ensure that scanned documents will look great while the annotation tools let you add notes and highlights to any scanned image.

PaperPort is included in the OmniPage Professional package. For application information, refer to PaperPort’s own documentation. PaperPort must be installed and uninstalled separately from OmniPage.

When PaperPort is available, its folder structure is offered in OmniPage’s Load from File and Save to File dialog boxes.

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Processing documents

This tutorial chapter describes different ways you can process a document and also provides information on key parts of this processing.

Processing methods

Using OmniPage, you can choose from the following processing methods:

Automatic

A fast and easy way to process documents is to let OmniPage do it automatically for you. Select settings in the Options dialog box and in the OmniPage Toolbox drop-down lists and then click Start. It will take each page through the whole

process from beginning to end, when possible running in parallel. It will typically auto-zone the pages.

Manual

Manual processing gives you more precise control over the way your pages are handled. You can process the document page-by-page with different settings for each page. The program also stops between each step: acquiring images, performing recognition, exporting. This lets you, for instance, draw zones manually or change recognition language(s). You start each step by clicking the three buttons on the OmniPage Toolbox

5.Use button one to get a set of images.

6.Manually zone pages where you want to process only part of the page or if you want to give precise zoning instructions. Use ignore backgrounds or zones to exclude areas from processing. Use process backgrounds or zones to specify areas to be auto-zoned.

7.Use button two to have the pages recognized.

8.Do proofing and editing as desired.

9.Use button three to save your results.

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The default for manual processing is to have all entered pages automatically selected. This way you can have all new pages recognized by a single mouse click. You can remove this default in the Process panel of the Options dialog box.

Combined

You can process a document automatically and view results in the Text Editor. If most pages are in order, but a few have not turned out as expected, you can switch to manual processing to adjust settings and re-recognize just those problem pages. Alternatively, you can acquire images with manual processing, draw zones on some or all of them, and then send all pages to automatic processing by pressing the Start button and choosing to process existing pages.

Workflow

A workflow consists of a series of steps and their settings. Typically it will include a recognition step, but it does not have to. It does not have to conform to the 1-2-3

pattern of traditional processing. Workflows are listed in the Workflow drop-down list – sample workflows plus any you create. Workflows allow you to handle recurring tasks more efficiently, because all the steps and their settings are pre-defined. You can choose to place the OmniPage Agent icon on your taskbar. Its shortcut menu lists your workflows. Click a workflow to launch OmniPage and have it run.

Let the Workflow Assistant guide you in creating new workflows. It provides a choice of steps and the settings they need. Click Next after each step to add another one. You can use the Assistant just to get more guidance when doing automatic processing. See “Workflow Assistant” in Chapter 4, page 76.

At a later time

You can schedule OCR jobs or other processing jobs in OmniPage Batch Manager to be performed automatically at a later time, when you may not even be present at your computer. This is done through the Batch Manager. It does not matter if your

computer is turned off after the job is set up, so long as it is running at job start time. If you are scanning pages, your scanner must be functioning at job start time, with the pages loaded in the ADF.

When you choose New Job, first the Job Wizard, and then the Workflow Assistant appears - the latter with a slightly modified set of choices and settings. In the first panel of the Job

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Wizard, you define your job type and name your job; next you are to specify a starting time, a recurring job or watched folder instructions.

A job incorporates a workflow with timing instructions added. See “Batch Manager” in Chapter 4, page 78.

Processing from other applications

You can use the Direct OCR™ feature to call on the recognition services of OmniPage while you work in the following applications: Microsoft Office XP or higher, Corel WordPerfect 12 or X3. First you must check the Enable Direct OCR check box under Tools > Options > General. Then, two buttons in the Office 2007 or 2010 Nuance OCR tab, or in an OmniPage toolbar open the door to OCR facilities.

How to set up Direct OCR

Start the application you want connected to OmniPage. Start OmniPage, open the Options dialog box at the General panel and select Enable Direct OCR.

In the target application, use the Acquire Text Settings button in the OmniPage toolbar (in Office 2007 or 2010 go to the Nuance OCR tab). Select options in the following panels:

•OCR: languages, dictionaries, layout, fonts.

•Process: Image pre-processing, choices for PDF opening, feature retention.

•Output format: Set a formatting level

•Direct OCR: Automatic or manual zoning, perform or skip proofing, image source.

•Scanner: Set-up or change scanner settings.

These function for future Direct OCR work until you change them again; they are not applied when OmniPage is used on its own.

How to use Direct OCR

1.Open your application and work in a document. To acquire recognition results from scanned pages, place them correctly in the scanner.

2.Use the OmniPage toolbar button Acquire Text Settings or the same item in the target application’s File menu (or the Nuance OCR tab in Office 2007 and 2010) to review your recognition settings, if necessary; the Direct OCR panel lets you specify input from scanner, image file or digital camera image files.

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3.Use the OmniPage toolbar button Acquire Text or the same item in the File menu (use the Nuance OCR tab in Office 2007 or 2010) to acquire images from the specified source.

4.If you selected Draw zones automatically in the Direct OCR panel of the Options dialog box, under Acquire Text Settings, recognition proceeds immediately.

5.If Draw zones automatically is not selected, each page image will be presented to you, allowing you to draw zones manually. Click the Perform OCR button to continue with recognition.

6.If proofing was specified, this follows recognition. Then the recognized text is placed at the cursor position in your application, with the formatting level specified in the Output Format panel under Acquire Text Settings.

Defining the source of page imagesFigure

There are three possible image sources: from image files, from a digital camera and from a scanner. There are two main types of scanners: flatbed or sheetfed. A scanner may have a built-in or added Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), which makes it easier to scan multipage documents. The images from scanned documents can be input directly into OmniPage or may be saved with the scanner’s own software to an image file, which OmniPage can later open.

The minimum width or height for an image file is 16 by 16 pixels; the maximum is 8400 pixels (71cm or 28 inches at the resolution 201 to 600 dpi). See Help for pixel limits.

You can govern how PDF files are opened under Tools / Options / Process: open with the text layer or as image, import tag information to assist layout retention and whether to use PDF fonts or the mapped system fonts. See the eDiscovery Assistant for searchable PDF section on how to make image-only PDF files searchable.

Input from image files

You can create image files from your own scanner, or receive them by e-mail or as fax files. OmniPage can open a wide range of image file types. Select Load Files in the Get Pages dropdown list. Files are specified in the Load Files dialog box. This appears when you start automatic processing. In manual processing, click the Get Page button or use the Process menu. The lower part of the dialog box provides advanced settings, and can be shown or hidden.

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Input from the Cloud

The Get Pages drop-down list offers direct connections to the following web-based storage sites: Evernote and Dropbox.

OmniPage 18 is delivered with a Nuance Cloud Connector component that can be easily configured by choosing it from the Windows Sart menu in the OmniPage group. Specify which further Cloud sites you wish to access, and also which FTP sites you want to use for file input.

When taking files from the cloud you may have to provide login information.

In OmniPage Professional, files can also be imported from Microsoft SharePoint 2003, 2007 and 2010, Hummingbird, iManage and ODMA-compliant Enterprise Content Management sources.

Input from digital camera

You can bring digital camera photos of documents for recognition into OmniPage. First, make sure that your device driver is installed properly. Then connect the camera and download images. Click Load Digital Camera Files in

the Get Page drop-down list. If you use this, 3D Deskew, resolution enhancement and straightening text lines are automatically performed on images. You can also do manual 3D deskewing, see the section Image Enhancement Tools later in this Chapter.

To acquire digital camera photos containing text from Direct OCR or PaperPort, mark the Load as digital camera image checkbox. The above mentioned automatic enhancements will apply.

For tips and advice on working with digital camera images see the How-to-Guides and Help.

Input via Easy Loader

This provides the Windows Explorer interface in an OmniPage window. In Flexible and Quick Views it appears by default. Choose Easy Loader in the Window menu to add it to Classic View or to show or hide it in other views. It functions as an alternative to the File Open dialog box; letting you browse your whole file system and efficiently select files to be loaded into OmniPage. Choose Process / Easy Loader / Folder to view files as Lists, Thumbnails, Tiles, Icons (arranged as desired) or Details, as you do in Explorer. The Loader can remain displayed as you work.

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