Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

What can you say about an OCR program that does just about everything right? In addition to its traditional superior character recognition and easy-to-use interface, Abbyy FineReader OCR 8.0 adds automated tasks, PDF tagging, and a screenshot reader that turns captured screen shots into text.

I’ve long been impressed with FineReader’s optical character recognition. For the basics of what an OCR program can do, read our review of FineReader 6.0 at

   http://www.officeletter.com/blink/finereader.html

I put the Corporate Edition of version 8.0 through its paces, and was not disappointed. Though the program didn’t put one text phrase in boldface as it should have, and its positioning of a text box didn’t match the original, it did properly convert bullet lists, tables, and font formatting (such as italics). I scanned using a low-cost Canon CanoScan N670U, using pages from a book, printouts from an HP LaserJet monochrome printer, and degraded text from a copy of a copy of a fax -- the results were uniformly impressive.

ABBYY says this version offers a 30 percent improvement in accuracy over the previous version; I can’t attest to that claim, but I can say that in all my tests, it flagged about 10 words for every 200 words it scanned, but never made more than one actual recognition mistake in that 200-word block. It flagged as possible problems san-serif, lower-case “f”s in one test document, but these were never actual errors.

The Screenshot Reader in Action Click to enlarge

The program is already extremely fast, but for the truly impatient, you can really gain speed is with the new “Fast Mode” read setting, which is useful when your original is of good quality. The company says the interpretation of your scanned text is about 2.5 times faster than “Thorough” mode. That’s about right -- when I tested high-quality text-only documents using both modes, the program highlighted only three additional “questionable” conversions and took half the time, interpreting a 500-word document in 4 seconds using “Fast” mode (versus 8 seconds in “Thorough” mode). I’ll take “Thorough” mode, thank you, and save myself from having to review those three extra highlights.

Among the other notable new features in this release:

Tagged PDFs: PDF files can contain information about the document structure itself, such as pictures and tables. In version 8, FineReader can create PDF files with such tags, which enables the PDF file to be “reflowed” in different screen sizes (which is especially useful for mobile and handheld devices). In addition, you can now set PDF file security options. FineReader lets you specify document Open and Permissions passwords, and you can select RC4-based 40-bit or 128-bit encryption or the newest AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)-based 128-bit encryption

Hot Folders: You can now perform OCR processing in the background. Put the files you want converted in a folder, specify this “hot folder” to FineReader, and let it go to work. (You can also schedule the OCR work for after hours.) The feature is in the Corporate Edition only.

Automation: If you have favorite settings and options, version 8 helps you save time with Automation Manager. You can execute multiple steps -- it comes loaded with a “Scan to Word” setting that presents you with your scanner’s interface (you have to press the “Scan” button to get things started), interprets the page, and opens it in Word. You can create your own multi-step automated task using a wizard.

Screenshot Reader: This utility lets you draw a box around an area on your screen, perform a screen capture, and then enable FineReader to convert it. This is a perfect way to capture error messages from programs, convert online stock information into an Excel table, and so on. (See illustration for an example -- we copied the "Help" window from the program, then OCR'd the text.)

Also new in this version (but a feature I did not test) is the ability to recognize text from images taken with a digital camera. Called Adaptive Recognition, it can be used when you’re at the library and want to make a quick copy with your cell phone and not a photocopier. We tested recognition of text from JPG and GIF images, but the originals were of sufficient quality to pose no problem for FineReader.

FineReader is priced a bit higher than its competition, but you get what you pay for. FineReader 8.0 Professional Edition is $179 for an upgrade from any OCR software (some kind of software usually ships with your scanner), or $399 if you want to purchase it without upgrading. The Corporate Edition (which we tested) costs $599 or just $499 if you upgrade from a competing product. For all the details, check out http://www.abbyyusa.com, where you’ll also find a trial version. -- James E. Powell

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